


Bloody Chemistry

by jdphoenix



Series: drabble collections [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:14:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 100
Words: 120,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3552227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of biospecialist fics prompted on my tumblr. Ratings and content will vary but warnings will be given on appropriate chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sleeping Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WSwinter prompt: fantasy

“This is hardly scientifically sound,” Jemma says as Skye makes her attempt.

“Lady Sif said it was the only sure-fire cure,” Coulson says, but he’s not looking at her. He’s currently in an eyebrow battle with May, who reluctantly concedes when he adds an arm to the mix, gesturing her towards the table.

“Lady Sif-” Jemma begins.

“Just a few hours ago you were swooning because Lady Sif comes from an advanced alien civilization,” Fitz cuts in. “If this is what she says works…” He shrugs and heads for the table.

May has had her turn, almost too quickly to be seen - and what would Lady Sif say about  _that,_  Jemma wonders. Is there some time limit they’re unaware of on top of the absurdity? 

“Yes, I did say that,” Jemma concedes as Fitz goes almost as quickly as May did. “However, compared to our ancestors,  _we_  are an advanced civilization and yet you can find, with very little trouble, no small amount of people who believe  _good thoughts_  capable of curing disease.”

“Actually,” Coulson says, “haven’t there been studies showing positivity increases chances of survival in many cases?” He’s smiling, trying to diffuse some of the tension.

Jemma keeps her expression schooled to a very severe frown.

Coulson shrugs and takes his own turn.

There has been no change  _whatsoever_ , Jemma would like it noted, despite the five attempts so far (Sif, she is told, tried while still in the field). And yet everyone is looking at her as if she’s holding things up. And she is, she supposes; a return to common sense and logic and  _science._

She huffs loudly and marches to the table. She falters for the briefest of moments, staring down at Ward’s face. He isn’t softened by sleep, so much as it lends him a different kind of severity. He is less an unbending mountain now and more a frozen lake. 

Which is just a silly thing to think and it’s only slowing down the getting back to science portion of the day, so she doesn’t know why she’s thinking it at all.

She bends over him, lifting a hand at the last moment to catch her hair so it doesn’t fall in his face; Lorelei’s poison has rendered him unresponsive but that doesn’t mean he can’t be irritated. Just like all the others before her, she presses her lips briefly to his. It is certainly not a _kiss_. A kiss is an intimate, loving act between two people and this is about as loving as resuscitation. Which, now that she thinks about it, is at least  _caring_  so it might be-

“What happened?” Ward asks, lurching up all at once. His voice is gruff from having just woken and he’s looking around him with wide, confused eyes.

Behind Jemma, Skye is cackling and Fitz is trying very hard to stifle his own laughter. 

“You were poisoned,” Coulson explains. He’s smiling too, damn him. May is in much the same state, but she’s retreating upstairs, either to the cockpit or to tell Sif of Ward’s recovery. “Sif told us that short of taking you to Asgard, there was only one shot at a cure. It worked.”

Ward is balanced on the edge of the table, halfway between getting off and staying on. He frowns and his lips twist oddly. Jemma tries to keep from doing the same.

“What was it?” he asks, looking to her and then the complete lack of medical tools nearby.

Jemma blushes. Rather badly, she’s afraid.

“True love’s kiss!” Skye laughs out.

Ward shoots her a scowl before turning to Coulson, expecting a more reasonable explanation. He gets only a shrug. Jemma can actually see him replaying the last few seconds in his head, followed by the realization that she was literally bending over him when he came awake. She hurries away to remove her examination gloves. And then realizes she is not going to ignore a patient just because he makes a miraculous recovery. That is, in fact, a horrible reason not to examine him.

She grabs a new pair of gloves and readies her equipment while Coulson and Ward converse.

“You’re not serious?” Ward asks.

“Very,” Coulson says mildly.

“We all went,” Skye says, and oh, she is  _loving_  this, isn’t she? Jemma will never be allowed to live this down.

“Just to be safe,” Fitz adds hastily.

“Hold it right there,” Jemma says. She can see Ward reflected in the window; he’s trying to climb off the table. “You were exposed to a poison of unknown origin and effect and we have no idea what it might still be doing to you. Sit.”

“Sif said-” Fitz begins.

“ _I do not care what Lady Sif said_ ,” Jemma cuts in. “Agent Ward is my patient and I am not going to be lax in his care because of some Asgardian superstition.”

Skye purses her lips and pulls Fitz towards the door. As they leave, Jemma hears a not-so-subtle, “ _Yeah,_  he’s her patient.”

Coulson is still standing by. Smiling.

“I’ll just leave you to it then,” he says. And then, to Ward, “Briefing upstairs when you’re cleared.”

“Right,” Ward says. It takes him exactly thirty seconds to speak again. “So …”

“I am not your true love,” Jemma says. And if she isn’t looking at him, well, that’s because it’s his body as a whole that needs her attention. She stalls briefly in her work as her own thoughts register completely. She curses Skye silently. The girl is a terrible influence.

“Right,” Ward says, perhaps a bit too readily. “Whatever you say.”

Somehow, the way he says it, she doesn’t believe he’s actually agreeing with her. If he was her true love, this would be a terrible way to start off the relationship.


	2. Domesticity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye gets a tour of the Bus - and a more thorough introduction.  
> Takes place during 1x02 "0-8-4"
> 
> [Unlike all the rest, this fic isn't the result of a tumblr prompt, just tumblr's influence. It never made the migration over to AO3 though and since I'm in housekeeping mode, here it shall go.]

“And this is the lab,” Grant says and just barely manages to hold back the suggestion that Skye stay here and annoy someone else for a while. It’s a  _plane_ , it’s not the Triskelion; why Coulson thought she needed a tour to kill time while they fly to Peru is beyond him.

“Very cool,” she says. She reaches out to touch a nearby microscope and two voices call out, “No.”

It’s a two letter word, it doesn’t take that long to say, yet somehow Fitz’s  _no_  ends up dropping off halfway through, buried under Jemma’s much sterner one. He backs away from his station to gently tell Skye not to unsettle any of the experiments.

“Right,” she says, “but what’s up with her? Wasn’t she like super nice yesterday? Or is there some evil twin thing going on here that I don’t know about?”

Grant can’t help but agree with Skye. Jemma’s usually happy to meet new people and just this morning she wouldn’t stop talking about how exciting it would be having another woman closer to her age on board. Even a fight with Fitz or a set-back in her research wouldn’t have her this closed off. He takes a step forward to ask for himself and is stopped by a firm hand.

“I wouldn’t,” Fitz says softly.

“What happened?” Grant asks, just barely restraining the urge to grab Fitz and knock an answer out of him.

Fitz gives Skye an uneasy smile. “Well, we were both very excited about you coming on board and we decided it might be beneficial-”

“You decided,” Jemma says in that same, sharp tone. Apparently Fitz’s low-key tone isn’t low enough.

“Right, well, no matter who decided, we ended up watching the recording of yesterday’s interrogation. To get to know you better.”

Grant winces. He didn’t exactly enjoy the character he played during that. It set Skye enough at ease to help them, but it definitely wasn’t a moment he wanted anyone seeing. Ever.

Skye is laughing into her hand. “Oh, boy, I’ll bet that was fun.”

“Yeah,” Fitz says, but his tone suggests otherwise. “It was fun for about ten seconds. That’s when …” He glances at Grant. “Well, when Ward said that you’re … a very attractive woman.”

Oh.

“What’s wrong with that?” Skye asks, sounding a little insulted. “Don’t you think I am?”

“Yes!” Fitz says a little too quickly.

Jemma huffs in annoyance.

“Jem,” Grant says, approaching her with all the care he would an armed assassin. Which isn’t just polite caution, either. She could definitely kill him with some of the chemicals in this lab.

She whirls on him. “Don’t you try to diffuse the moment with pet names, Grant Ward. It’s infantalizing.”

He ignores that - so long as she doesn’t start using his middle name, he’s still doing well. “You know that sometimes my job requires-”

She waves him off. “Yes, yes. You have to seduce women for information and assistance and whatever else in your dealings. But you always  _tell_  me.”

“What!” Fitz yells, scandalized.

Grant winces again. He’s not exactly supposed to be telling Jemma every time he seduces another woman.

“Yes,” he says, directing his answer to Fitz. “And it would be better if  _no one ever knew about that_.”

“Whoa whoa, time out,” Skye says, even doing the gesture with her hands. “Are you two-” She trails off, apparently unable to decide just what to call them. “Doesn’t SHIELD have rules about people working together while they’re dating?”

“Yes, of course,” Jemma says readily.

“When they’re married too,” Grant adds and grabs Jemma’s left arm to hold up her hand. She fists it before Skye can possible catch sight of the rings and actually tries to fight her way out of his grasp. He pulls her into his chest, trapping her in his arms. He drops a kiss on the top of her head, knowing how much it irritates her to be reminded how much shorter she is than him - and how much, despite that, she secretly likes it when he kisses her there.

“I’m still angry with you,” she says petulantly.

“Yeah, I know,” he says. He gives her a little squeeze. “Look, you were so excited about the gun-”

“The night-night gun,” Fitz says for Skye's benefit, “I designed that.”

“We are  _not_  calling it that,” Grant says, never taking his eyes off Jemma. He can feel her chest jump with quiet laughter and calls it a win. “And about Skye sticking around,” he continues, “there just wasn’t a chance to tell you. But I promise that in the future I will  _always_  tell you when I have to flirt with someone for a job.”

She wiggles her arms out of his hold and wraps them around his neck. “That is all I ask. If we’re going to be working together, we need to be honest with each other.”

He is definitely expecting a we-survived-our-first-fight-while-on-a-team-together kiss, so he’s a little annoyed when Skye appears next to them.

“Okay,” she says when they look at her. “One: I am  _so sorry_  for flirting with your husband. I swear, if I’d had any idea…”

Jemma’s grip on his neck loosens and Grant holds her tighter in response. He isn’t giving up on that kiss yet.

“It’s all right,” she says, shooting him a slightly perturbed look from the corner of her eye as she attempts (and fails) to face Skye. “It  _is_  his job, as he said, and I know from experience how much fun it can be to flirt with him.”

“Yeah,” Skye says, giving Grant her own side-long look. “And, equally important number two: I am  _so sorry_  this is your husband. I’m sure he has some redeeming qualities...” Her gaze drops uncomfortably low and Grant twists his hips to hide behind Jemma’s legs. She giggles. “But yeah, still very sorry.”

“Have I mentioned I like her?” Fitz asks.

Jemma’s giggles are in danger of turning into full-fledged laughter. Fitz’s originally serious arguments against marrying a specialist have become something of a joke between he and Jemma; Grant’s well aware he brings them up whenever Jemma comes to him for a friendly ear after they’ve had a fight. 

She clings to his arm as much as she’s pushing at his hands, trying to get him to let her go. And he still hasn’t gotten his kiss!

He curses under his breath, which stops her laughter immediately. She doesn’t like it when he curses - at least not without good reason - and he takes advantage of her outraged silence to kiss her. She makes sure he can feel her frown before relaxing and returning the kiss.

“Ew,” Skye says.

“Agreed,” Fitz says. “Let’s leave them to it. No telling how long the domestic bliss will last.”

Grant is totally on board with that plan since he intends on this “domestic bliss” lasting at least halfway to Peru.


	3. Reasons to Hate Jemma Simmons (school AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WSwinter: school AU
> 
> Grant tries to avoid his little sister's best friend at all costs.

Grant has to read  _Ulysses_  by the end of spring break, which means he really doesn’t have time for his little sister’s shenanigans. Or her attempts at shenanigans. Mom and Dad are out of town, which leaves Grant in charge; Skye’s even more locked down than usual.

“No,” Grant says without taking his eyes of the page.

Skye goes from hovering to full-on leaning over the back of the couch. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean, no. Whatever scheme you’ve concocted to get my permission to go to the party, drop it right now.” He lifts his eyes as he turns the page. “You. Are. Not. Going.”

There have been twenty-three attempts over the course of the week - and those are just the ones Grant’s certain were attempts (he’s still not sure about the thing with the pudding) - but none of his refusals have gotten him this reaction. She’s not pouting, she’s not yelling, she’s not begging. Actually she’s not looking at him at all. She’s looking at her phone, twisting it between her hands but not actually using it. Her shoulders are hunched and she looks like she’d rather be anywhere than here right now.

“I need your help,” she says softly.

Grant sets the book aside and reaches for her arm. “Skye…”

“I’ve been getting texts from Jemma all night.”

Grant’s hand twitches, but if Skye notices, she doesn’t mention it. He’s known Jemma Simmons almost as long as Skye has and those two have been best friends since elementary school. There’s nothing wrong with the girl and Grant likes her just fine. (Okay, he may have once, when he was drunk at college, written an itemized list of all the things he hates about Jemma Simmons, ranging from “too smart for her own damn good” to “too short.” But really, he kind of wishes Skye would be more like Jemma. Jemma has this little thing called common sense that Grant sometimes worries his sister lacks.)

“I thought they sounded kind of weird, but she’s at her cousin’s party so she’s probably just distracted, right?” She looks to him for confirmation he has no context to give, but he nods anyway, just to get this story moving. “Well, Leo called me a few minutes ago. Jem’s kind of … super drunk.”

Maybe Grant  _doesn’t_  want Skye to be more like Jemma. He eases back on the couch and tries to channel Dad for a responsible adult reaction to that news.

“Well, I’m sorry about your friend,” he says. “She’ll probably do something incredibly stupid and have a hell of a hangover tomorrow and you’ll be glad then that I didn’t let you go.”

“Grant,” Skye says. “Jemma’s  _super drunk_.”

“I heard you.”

“Like, passed-out drunk.”

Grant reaches for his book. “And her cousin knows. He’ll take care of her.”

“Leo is trying to make sure nobody burns the house down. He asked me to come get Jemma because he’s worried something’s gonna happen to her.”

Grant knows exactly the sorts of things that could happen to an unattended and unaware girl at an out-of-control party. The thought of that happening to anyone - the thought of that happening to his  _little sister’s best friend_  - is enough to turn his stomach.

He climbs off the couch, still holding his book. “You’re driving.” He can at least get some reading in on the way.

Skye runs for the garage with Grant close on her heels. 

It’s late in the suburbs, so they make good time, but Grant doesn’t even manage to read a single line. He’s too caught up thinking about Jemma. If he’s honest with himself (and he tries really hard not to be on this particular subject) he likes her. He doesn’t “like her just fine.” He doesn’t “just like her.” No, he definitely  _likes_  her. Like, likes her in a way where that bathing suit she wore to Skye’s birthday party last summer featured heavily in his dreams afterward. (Actually the bathing suit never had much play once it made its way to the floor.)

Which is bad. Bad bad  _bad_. Because one (yes, he has an itemized list for this too; this one made while stone cold sober): Jemma is Skye’s best friend. It should go without saying that this means there is something deeply wrong with Jemma. Two: Jemma is in high school. There are laws against that sort of thing and also his parents might have some choice words for him on the subject as well. Three: the entire contents of the “why I hate Jemma Simmons” list.

So he’s not gonna do anything - except drive across town in the middle of the night to a party full of hopped up, Axe-soaked teenagers to save her from potentially being assaulted. Instead of calling Leo’s mom. Or the cops. Or literally anyone at all better qualified to deal with this situation.

He really needs to stop coming home on breaks.

The party, when they arrive, is as terrible as Grant imagined.

“Where is she?” he asks, voice raised almost to a yell to be heard over the music.

“He’s not answering!” Skye answers with a shake of her phone in case he couldn’t understand her. “I’ll look for him, you look upstairs!” She points to the stairs.

He nods, not bothering to try to be heard, and pushes through the crowd. The house is crammed with people and Grant is pretty sure he can already smell vomit. He does _not_ envy Leo the riot act his mom is gonna read him.

It’s quieter and less disgusting upstairs, but it’s also a lot more awkward. Every time Grant finds a couple of teenagers feeling each other up in a room, he’s gotta actually _look_ to make sure neither of them are Jemma. Luckily no one at Leo’s party seems ready to do much more than fondling (and Grant is not surprised, Leo’s kind of a huge nerd) but Grant is still more than ready to leave when he finally finds Jemma.

She’s alone (thankfully; Grant’s pretty sure he’d punch out any guy unlucky enough to be with her) and flipping through a thick book in one of the guest rooms.

“The party is downstairs,” she says in a way that makes him think she’s had to say it a  _lot_. When the door closes with him still on her side of it, she looks up. “Grant?” Her mouth twists into a confused smile.

“You okay?” he asks cautiously. He’s never been around a drunk Jemma; he’s not exactly sure what to expect.

“I was just about to ask you the same.” She closes the book and folds her hands over it in her lap. “What could possibly have brought you here?”

“You,” he says simply. Simple seems to work best with his roommate when he's drunk and he figures it’s a good jumping off point with Jemma. 

She goes scarily still, her eyes fixed on him. One of her hands curls inward so that she accidentally pinches the other one. She jumps slightly and firmly shakes her head.

“What was that?” she asks.

He comes around to sit on the edge of the bed, so he’s more on her level. “Skye said you’d been drinking.”

Jemma laughs - one big, loud, embarrassing laugh that has her slapping a hand over her mouth and leaves Grant trying not to smile. (Reason number thirty-eight he hates Jemma: her laugh is adorable. Always.)

“You didn’t actually believe that, did you?” she asks.

It occurs to Grant that Skye might’ve gotten better at lying while he was away. He falls back on the bed and puts his hands over his face.

“Oh my gosh. She got me. She totally got me.”

Jemma’s laughing. Oh, she’s trying not to let him hear but she’s doing a terrible job at muffling the sound.

“She is never gonna let me live this down,” he sighs, dropping one hand to his stomach and dragging the other through his hair.

“No, I don’t imagine she will.”

He looks at her over the length of his body. She’s smiling at him. (Reason number five: her smile is just ridiculous.)  “I guess I’ll let her hang out for a little while. She deserves it after pulling that. And how much trouble can she possibly get into with Leo’s friends?”

Jemma goes wide-eyed. Grant’s known her since she was six years old. More importantly, she’s been getting dragged into Skye’s crazy schemes since she was six years old and has never,  _ever_  been good at keeping quiet about it. He scrambles up to the end of the bed and Jemma cringes into her chair, pulling her book up in front of her face. 

“ _Jemma_ ,” he says sternly.

“Reading!” Her voice is high-pitched.

“What is Skye up to?”

“Nothing!”

He pushes the book down to reveal a very red-faced Jemma. (Reason number forty-seven: her expression-making-thing. (The list got less understandable as he got drunker, but it’s all still valid.)) He raises an eyebrow.

She sighs heavily. “I suppose you can know - since it shouldn’t be a surprise to  _you_ ,” she adds. Grant has no idea what that’s supposed to mean. (Reason number two: sometimes, even though all the words she’s saying are in English, she’s not actually speaking English.) “According to Skye, being eighteen and unkissed is the worst fate that can befall a human being and she doesn’t want it to happen to her.”

“Wait,” Grant says because that wasn’t at all what he was expecting. He legitimately needs a minute to process. “Skye’s never been kissed?” is what he ends up going with.

Jemma scoffs. Loudly. “With you scaring off any boys who dared come anywhere near us? You only ever gave Leo a pass because he’s my cousin and you couldn’t make him leave!”

That might actually be a little true. He  _did_  kind of threaten to ruin the athletic careers of any football player stupid enough to go near Skye - or, by association, Jemma (but that was  _not_ his intention; it’s not his fault they’re inseparable) - after he overheard a fullback complimenting her skirt.

Someone else might be horrified to learn their youthful threats were so effective, but Grant’s actually really proud. He’s totally telling Dad about this next time he needs some money. 

“Maybe I should go out there,” he says, thinking Dad would appreciate this story a lot more if it ends with Grant dragging Skye out of here.

Before he can do more than look towards the door, Jemma hits him in the shoulder with her book. It’s a  _really_  heavy book.

“What was that for?”

“Grant Maynard Coulson, don‘t you dare!” (Reason number twenty-nine: she knows his middle name and is not afraid to use it.) “If you have to, call it an early birthday present for your sister, but you are not going to stop her from getting her first kiss tonight.”

He looks to the door again, still rubbing his sore shoulder. “What’s the big deal, anyway? Why don’t you just tell her a first is never as good as you build it up to be?”

There is a distinct silence from the direction of the chair. Slowly, he turns to her.

“Jemma?” he asks, but he’s pretty sure he already knows what’s going on here. Skye and Jemma are two peas, always have been despite their differences. The bitterness he heard in Jemma’s voice when she mentioned Skye’s designs for tonight makes a little more sense than he’d like.

She’s not looking at him. She’s not pretending to read again, but she’s definitely not looking at him. “Maybe you  _should_  go find Skye. She’s probably by the pool.”

She’s not. No matter how much Jemma wants to get rid of him, Grant is one hundred percent sure she would never betray Skye by telling him where she might be.

“You’re eighteen?” he asks instead of leaving.

That, at least, gets Jemma looking at him again. She’s angry, but it’s progress. “You’ve known me since I was six years old and you don’t know how old I am?” She might be about to say more but her rage gets eaten up by … by something. He’s not sure what, but it ends with her looking away again. “I don’t want your pity, Grant. Please just leave.”

He probably should, but Jemma’s always been smarter than him (reason number sixteen), so he’s kind of confused that she hasn’t seen the obvious solution. 

“So why aren’t you out there?” he asks. “You could be - and I cannot believe I’m about to say this - kissing guys along with Skye.”

“Skye doesn’t want to kiss guys,” Jemma informs him tartly. “She wants to kiss  _one_  guy.” That - while a massive relief - is not even a little bit an answer to his question.

“Seriously, why aren’t you out there? Look, if you’re waiting for some magical first kiss with some perfect guy, it’s not gonna happen. Guys - especially high school guys - are jerks. Trust me, I used to be one.” That gets him a smile, albeit a small one.

“You were never a jerk, Grant. At least not on purpose.”

“And that’s what makes us such massive jerks. We don’t even realize we’re doing it. So if you really believe Skye’s imaginary cut off date is so important, just find a guy and lay one on him.” The thought of Jemma actually doing that makes him feel a little sick, but he’s trying to do the non-jerk thing here, okay?

She’s at least considering his advice - and he’s pretty sure if she goes out there, he’s gonna break up this whole party in the next five minutes (for Skye, totally for Skye). Meanwhile his brain is bringing up reason number thirty-one (she’s just a dumb kid) repeatedly. It takes him way too long to realize why - that she is not a kid anymore - because by the time he does, she’s gotten out of the chair.

She doesn’t head for the door though, doesn’t even really get up all the way. She just moves forward into his space and his hands come up on instinct to catch her hips and then she’s kissing him. 

It’s her first kiss, but she’s a quick study and by the time they get around to her second and third, she’s giving him a run for his money.

* * *

Downstairs, Skye pulls her face off of Leo’s long enough to ask, “Do you think they’re making out yet?”

“I would really rather not think about what my cousin and your brother are doing right now, thank you.”

“I’m just saying! My evil plan worked out really well, don’t you think?”

Leo pretends to consider. “I need to gather a little more data, I’m afraid.”

“Jerk,” Skye says, and kisses him again.


	4. "Quick catch that cat it stole my wallet!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Quick catch that cat it stole my wallet!"

“You are just the most precious flower, aren’t you?” Fitz asks. Beside him, Skye is trying - not hard - to hold in her laughter.

“I will murder you,” Grant says. His eyes slide to Skye. “Both.” He’s already on edge because of their insistence that they sit at an  _outdoor_  table - “for atmosphere! And people watching!” - he does  _not_ need their teasing too.

“Hush,” Jemma says as she ( _finally_ ) finishes adjusting the pillow beneath his foot. It’s only a little bit broken but she‘s been fussing every five minutes since they left the Bus. Grant’s not even sure how she had time to eat her panino. “No one is killing anyone,” she adds primly. “We are here to enjoy Rome, not torture our ailing teammate. And just because Ward’s pillow happens to have flowers on it, doesn’t mean you get to tease him about it.”

“Oh, that’s not why we’re teasing him,” Fitz says.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? 

Grant frowns at Fitz, who gives him a  _come on_  eyebrow raise. Grant furrows his brow, still confused, and Fitz tilts his head towards Jemma.

No. Nononono. They can’t-  _no!_

Before Grant’s internal freak out can make its way to the surface, their waiter comes out to check on them. He kicks at a stray cat that’s wandered onto the patio but the ratty thing doesn’t go further than the next table, where an elderly couple coos over it.

“What’d he say?” Skye asks, as she has every single time anyone has said anything to them in this city. 

“He asked if we want dessert. Which we don’t,” Grant says sternly. Skye’s had plenty of culture and people watching for one day. If she wants more, she can beg Coulson to take her out in Lola tomorrow.

Grant pulls out his wallet and just hears the waiter’s half-uttered warning before a dirty grey blur lands in his lap. The cat’s there and gone in a flash, leaping away down the road. The waiter curses.

“Catch that cat!” Grant snaps at Skye.

“What? It’s just a little cat!”

“It  _stole_  my  _wallet!_ ”

Skye’s eyes go comically wide and then she’s off, running after the cat.

“You too,” Grant says to Fitz. Over his protests, Grant adds, “Someone has to make sure she can actually find her way back here.”

Fitz curses under his breath and runs off, at a much slower pace, after Skye. Grant settles back into his seat. Jemma’s on the edge of hers, carefully reorienting his foot again while she worries her lip and watches Fitz disappear around the corner.

“Do you think they’ll catch it?” she asks.

Their waiter is hovering over them, apologizing and saying there’s been a spree of cat crimes in the area lately. Someone’s been training cats to steal wallets from tourists.

“I know,” Grant says in Italian. Like he was gonna go out into a city without checking the recent criminal activity. He flashes his wallet at the waiter with a smile and orders two gelatos.

The waiter disappears, leaving Jemma to gape at Grant.

He shrugs unapologetically and pulls her chair closer to his so he can put his arm around her shoulders. “Next time you invite me to do the tourist thing with you, maybe make it clear you mean you  _and_  the others.” She leans into his side, most of her annoyance already gone. He’s pretty sure he can get rid of that last little bit before their dessert comes. “Also, I think Fitz knows. Which probably means Skye knows.”

Jemma hums, her cheeks going a little pink. She’s looking resolutely straight ahead and her back has gone pole-straight. 

“ _Jemma_ ,” he says in gentle warning.

She turns sideways as much as the chair and his grip on her will allow. “You know I can’t lie! And Skye just kept pestering me- I made them promise not to say anything!”

Later Grant is gonna care about how that went from just Skye to Skye  _and Fitz_ , but right now he’s got some alone time with Jemma in one of the most romantic cities in the world. He’s not gonna waste it.

He tightens his grip on her shoulders just a little and pulls her in for a kiss. When she leans back, she’s smiling in that dreamy way he likes. And just in time for gelato too.


	5. "You need to stop leaving dead bodies in my kitchen"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "You need to stop leaving dead bodies in my kitchen"

“This has got to stop,” Jemma says. She’s been rehearsing this for weeks, longer than it’s been since the last time he was here. She is absolutely determined to get this dealt with today.

“What’s that, honey?” Grant asks even as he gestures her towards a waiting plate of pancakes on the counter. He’s eating a plate of his own, with his feet propped up on the table right next to a very fresh looking corpse. There’s blood dripping down onto the tile she just scrubbed yesterday.

“You need to stop leaving dead bodies in my kitchen,” she sighs.

He shrugs. “That’s fine. Just tell me where you’d rather I leave them and I’ll put them there from now on. Do you want me to move this one now or do you wanna finish breakfast first?”

The man is infuriating. She doesn’t know why she ever married him - and says as much while she rubs at her already aching head. It is far too early in the morning to be dealing with him.

“You married me because you love me,” he says - like it’s obvious, like he’s reminding her in case she’s forgotten. 

She considers telling him she doesn’t love him, not anymore, but that will only be rehashing an old argument (and one she is secretly unsure she has any chance of winning), which will take them far from the more pertinent topic of the dead man on her kitchen table.

“I don’t want you leaving me bodies anymore, period.” She grabs her waiting plate of pancakes. He’s been at this routine long enough now that she knows he’s not going to poison her and besides, she paid for all the ingredients, she’s going to enjoy them. She sits on the same side of the table he is, choosing to avoid speaking over the dead body rather than keep her distance.

Grant, she has learned over the length of their relationship, doesn’t do the traditional puppy dog face. He doesn’t beg or plead for things he wants (well, he  _does_ , but they are not now or ever going to revisit the circumstances surrounding those rare and wonderful instances). He does, however, have a habit of looking like a kicked puppy when he’s confused and hurt. She’s been seeing a  _lot_  of that face since he was exposed as a double agent and isn’t surprised to see it now.

“You don’t like it?” he asks. “You always liked when I brought you dead bodies before. That was the first gift I ever gave you, remember?”

Oh, she remembers. She remembers a bruised and bleeding specialist heaving a two hundred pound corpse onto her lab table and demanding she find and extract the data drive hidden somewhere inside the body. It wasn’t the most romantic of first meetings, but she had always felt that made it more special somehow. It wasn’t some tired story belonging to a million other couples. It was only  _theirs_.

And now, apparently, he’s trying to mend bridges by reliving that first encounter and bringing her corpses. Like some stray cat who’s decided he wants to keep her as his caretaker and brings her offerings of mutilated mice and birds.

She  _does_  have a speech prepared. It’s a good one too, which goes through, point by point, all the reasons he needs to stop. Only it begins with the rather cold statement that she is never taking him back, no matter how many times he breaks into her home and leaves her the corpses of SHIELD’s enemies. And while she’s  _not_  going to take him back, he looks so pitiful that she just can’t bring herself to say it. So she skips ahead to the more practical reasons.

“I just cleaned this floor and now you’ve got blood all over it.”

“It’s not  _all_  over,” he says, though he winces at the size the puddle has grown to.

“And I simply do not have the means to deal with a body here-”

“I always stay to take care of things.” Which he does. No matter how long she spends dissecting the corpses, he always stays and takes the body with him when he goes. It’s actually kind of sweet - in a serial killer sort of way.

“There’s nowhere for me to store one if I don’t have the time to deal with it right away and this table is going to break soon from all the stress it’s put under. And eventually one of my neighbors is going to see you and I have no idea how to explain all of this. It just isn’t practical, Grant. So please, will you stop?”

She’s barely touched her pancakes. The plate’s gone cold in her lap and she grips the edge of it as she waits for his reaction. There’s really no telling these days how he’ll handle anything she says to him. She’s not afraid of him - the only thing she’s certain of is that he won’t hurt her - but he might go murder an entire HYDRA facility if he takes things badly. (Which is exactly what happened when he first paid her one of these visits and discovered she’d stopped wearing his rings. Jemma thinks that might be why Coulson’s made little effort to stop Grant’s visits.)

After several long seconds, he sighs heavily and meets her eyes with a weak smile. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Jemma. I should’ve thought this through better.”

“It’s all right,” she says automatically. That’s all she can manage through her surprise though, as he stands and drops his plate in the sink.

“Do you want me to…?” he asks, cocking a thumb towards the body.

“Please. Take him.”

Grant nods and deposits a brief kiss on her cheek (one that has her stomach fluttering and her hands gripping the plate so tightly it might break) before heaving the body over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. It’s just past dawn on a Saturday so she doesn’t expect any of her neighbors will see him going, but all the same, she’s thankful for the very tall trees edging her property. 

She never finishes her breakfast; her appetite’s left with him, it seems. A pity. He always made the best pancakes.

 

* * *

 

She’s not nearly as surprised as she should be a month later when she returns from a week-long mission in Argentina, to find her garage has been expanded and now houses a fully-functional lab, complete with a walk-in freezer big enough to hold at least a dozen corpses.


	6. "I'm like 70% sure this won't explode on us"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I'm like 70% sure this won't explode on us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated **explicit** for sex so be aware.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” Simmons says when he enters the room. It’s a pleasant surprise considering the last time he saw her she was threatening to murder him. “I’m slightly out of my depth here but I _am_  75% sure this isn’t going to explode on us - which is something, right?”

 _That_ is a less pleasant surprise. He comes around the room cautiously - and not just because of the potentially exploding thing. This is a HYDRA base - currently in the process of becoming a _former_ HYDRA base - and there’s no telling what else might be around here. There was obviously a fight; two of the glass enclosures to one side of the lab are smashed in and at least one of the plants inside has been broken in half, but whoever did it - or whoever Simmons tried to do it to - is gone now, leaving her all alone, crouched on the floor beside what is very obviously a bomb.

“Not high enough,” he says. With bombs, it’s 100% or nothing.

She turns wide eyes on him and he realizes that she _may_ have thought he was someone else. She goes for her gun left on the floor - sloppy - but he’s on her before she can reach it.

He drags her back and she kicks out behind her as she lunges. He has to wrap his arms around her and press her into the floor to keep her from getting away. She struggles futilely and he shakes her shoulders to force her to twist around to look at him.

He can feel every curve of her body and the way her heart is pounding in her chest. She’s flushed from the fight and her new haircut looks even better in a mess on the tiles around her head. He wants to drag his fingers through it. He wants to taste her skin and bury his face in-

_What the hell?_

He rears back slightly - which is completely the wrong move because that only rocks his hips into hers. She shifts under him, just a small adjustment, not an attempt to escape. Then her faintly curious expression turns to horror and he realizes he’s not the only one feeling a little amped up here. 

That’s not what he’s here for. He’s gotta get a grip on the situation. 

“You said you were out of your depth,” he reminds her, “and bombs are one of my specialties-” She scoffs and he doesn’t have to ask to know she’s thinking uncharitably of his _other_ specialties. He allows himself to glare down at her. Anger is a lot more reliable than that other feeling burning at the back of his brain. “You need me,” he says, voice hard. When she doesn’t respond, he tightens his grip on her just a little, just enough to remind her of the position she’s in. “If I wanted to kill you, I’d have done it by now. Right?”

“Right,” she says reluctantly when he doesn’t let up.

He releases her immediately and sits up to inspect the bomb. “Good girl.” That has her on the ground for a few more seconds, held there by what he can only imagine is shocked rage. He doesn’t bother hiding his grin.

When she finally gets up, it’s all the way to her feet. “Well,” she says awkwardly, “since you’ve got this covered-”

He grabs her hand before she can move away and tugs her back down so she has to brace herself against his shoulder or hit the tiles hard. “You’re not going anywhere.”

She carefully steadies herself as best she can with his iron grip on his arm. Her skin is soft. Her strong fingers walk over the break between his tac vest to the sleeve of his shirt and stall there. “I won’t exactly be much help-”

“I don’t forget when people threaten my life. This needs my attention right now; I can’t be wondering if you’re about to stab me in the back.”

Her breath tickles his neck while she considers. Finally he feels her relax back on her heels. “Okay.”

Her hand falls away from his shoulder and he has to force himself to let go of her wrist. Which makes no sense. Even if she went for the gun, at this distance he could easily stop her before she got a shot off. He’d probably have to tackle her again, just to be sure. This time he’d cushion her head when he brought her down and press his knee between her thighs and finally take that taste of her-

Grant tilts his head slightly as he brings his thoughts back into focus. There is a literal bomb in front of him and he’s suddenly developed a hard-on for Simmons?

“There’s something wrong,” he says as he examines the internal wiring of the bomb. “Not with this.” He pulls a wire, effectively making the bomb a useless hunk of metal. “Something else though.”

She didn’t make a sound when he casually diffused the bomb, didn’t even gasp. He can feel her eyes on him like a physical touch. He wants a real one.

“Yes,” she says, her voice low, throaty. “There is definitely something wrong.”

He knows it’s a bad idea - he should be putting distance between them, getting the hell away from her - but he looks at her anyway. Her hand shakes as she brings it up to the comm in her ear.

“The lab marked 213 is under quarantine,” she says. He’s honestly impressed that she’s managed to get her voice under control. He’s also pissed off that she could recover so easily, that she‘s recovered _at all_. “I believe there might be some sort of biological agent, something affecting hormonal balance and basic reasoning.” She hasn’t taken her eyes off Grant once and he can see the flush returning as he invades her personal space. When did he start moving? “I-I have to go.” She pulls the comm from her ear. He’s not sure what happens to it, he only knows that she makes the most _amazing_ sound when he pulls at her earlobe with his teeth.

She tugs at the clasps of his tac vest. He’s not sure if the small whines she’s letting out are frustration with that or the result of his hands under her shirt.

“The plants,” she says.

He presses the side of his head against hers and hums in agreement, right in her ear. A second later the penny drops and he realizes she’s still trying to figure out what’s going on. He’s moved pretty far past that page, himself. He’s on a whole different book, actually.

“They must be emitting some sort of gas or-”

He nips at the skin beneath her ear. “Don’t care.”

That seems good enough for her. As for him, he knows, consciously, that this isn’t like anything he’s experienced before. It’s not some alien artifact dredging up all his most hidden parts. It’s not the false loyalty that Asgardian bitch imposed on him. This is something new, like something’s clicked into place all of a sudden and his whole world seems different somehow. Different in the sense that the most important thing he can possibly be doing, is fucking Simmons.

She finally gets his vest open and shoves it off his shoulders. He returns the favor by pulling her shirt and sweater over her head. He’s struck momentarily dumb by the sight of her black bra. She’s not similarly affected by the sight of him in just his shirt and snaps him out of it with her tugging. He absently pulls it over his head and does exactly what he’d dreamed of earlier: lays her out beneath him on the cold floor. 

She clings to him, all legs and arms and hips pressing up into his. Touching her skin-to-skin is like a drug and he’s already way past addicted. He draws his tongue up her neck. He really does love the sounds she makes. Her fingers claw at his shoulders and her breasts press into his chest.

“Not enough,” he says into her skin as he tries to unclasp her bra. He wants to touch her everywhere. The second time his fingers slip, she lets out a cry of frustration and pushes him far enough off her that she can reach around herself.

“Pants,” she practically growls. He’s not about to argue. The distance - barely anything, he’s still kneeling between her legs and they brush against each other as they rush to get undressed - gives her space to think. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“No,” he agrees. He’s here to kill as many HYDRA agents as he can and make sure the team escapes with minimal damage. Having sex with Simmons on the floor of a lab is the last thing he should be doing.

He barely finishes answering before he’s on her again and she’s no better. While he’s busy exploring her breasts, she’s already making a move for the finale. Her deft fingers brush against his cock and he tenses, hissing in a breath around her nipple in his mouth.

He’s still trying to get a hold of himself when her hips buck insistently against his.

“Fuck,” he says. It’s all he can think. His whole world has boiled down to that one word and all the ways he can act it out with Simmons on this cold lab floor. 

She laughs and grips his ass. He pushes her down and there is _definitely_ something wrong with them both because all he sees in her expression is eager anticipation. 

He spares a brief moment to think they shouldn’t be doing this before he says, “Fuck,” again and pushes inside her. She keens. The muscles in her neck go taut and he can feel her nails biting into his back.

She shifts around him, trying to accommodate him comfortably - or trying to get some friction going - and moans his name. The plea in her voice and his own mounting desperation get him moving. Now that he’s inside her, it’s like touching her times ten. He feels like he’ll explode if he doesn’t spend this build-up of energy on her. She doesn’t seem to mind.

If he ever thought about sleeping with Simmons, it never would’ve been like this. It wouldn’t have been hard and fast on some dirty floor next to a bomb. He would have carefully drawn her out, not just started pounding into her like an animal in heat. But this isn’t some play he’s concocted to gain the upper hand and Simmons isn’t some blushing flower. He wonders if it’s just whatever’s affecting them or if, like him, this has only made her more honest with her wants.

For all the noise she made early on, she doesn’t make a sound when she comes. Her mouth opens like it’s caught in a scream but nothing escapes but a labored sigh as she comes back down. 

Finished himself, he braces his hands on either side of her head. They’re both breathing heavily and her eyes are closed, allowing him to watch the way her face changes as her orgasm fades. 

“Beautiful,” he says, trailing his knuckles down her cheek. It might just be the plants talking, but he thinks she might be the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Her hands are running soothingly up and down his arms and over his shoulders, like a belated apology for the damage she’s done to him. He doesn’t feel too bad, he can already see a few bruises coming in that’ll stick with her for a while.

The team will be wondering what’s wrong with her, why she’s not answering her comm. If they’re not already outside, trying to get the security system back up, they will be soon. And whatever is happening to the two of them needs to be dealt with. But Grant’s already getting hard again inside her and his skin burns where they touch and aches where they don’t. She tightens around him and her eyes open, already alight with heat.


	7. "Who did this to you?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Who did this to you?"

The cockpit door opens and Grant cranes his neck to see who’s come in.

“Oh,” he says, his smile falling. “I thought you were Skye.

“No,” Simmons says, “just me.” She drops down in the copilot chair and stares at him. It’s … kind of disconcerting.

“What’s up?” he asks, careful to keep his tone casual. He’s Grant Ward. He’s the highest ranking agent (at least if they’re still pretending things like that matter) on board this plane and (in case they  _aren’t_  pretending anymore) he’s got the most experience. It’s natural that they’ll both be looking to him for support and stability. Which means he has to act like this whole HYDRA/flying to LA/decrypting the hard drive thing is no big deal.

“Who did this to you?” she asks, her voice soft, concerned.

He quirks his lips in a cocky smile. “Simmons-”

She catches his chin as he turns towards her. It’s kind of like that first day, only a lot less invasive. Maybe that’s because there’s not a q-tip shoved in his mouth. Or maybe it’s because he’s just gotten used to having people around who care about him. Her grip is warm, firm. Her eyes are pained.

This is gonna get a whole lot worse for her before it gets better, and he’s honestly sorry for that.

Her hand drops away and she settles back into the seat, but her eyes never waver from him. “Was it Garrett?” she asks. There’s an edge to her voice he’s never heard before.

He turns back to the sky. They’re not exactly inconspicuous up here and he’s gotta keep them on a careful flight path to avoid detection. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, hoping she’ll take that to mean he doesn’t want to dwell on his harrowing escape from the Fridge.

“Of course it matters.”

He sighs heavily. “Listen, I get that you’re worried about me and that ever since HYDRA, you’re on this whole mother hen kick, taking care of everyone - which is  _fine_  - but I don’t need you checking up on me.” She stayed behind in Providence just to keep an eye on his health, which was pretty much the last thing he needed at the time. So while he appreciates it, he really doesn’t. “I’ve gotta focus on things here, why don’t you go talk to Skye? Keep her company?”

Simmons scoffs. “That would be fruitless, seeing as Skye’s under the influence of two dendrotoxin rounds and will be out for at least the next twelve hours.”

Maybe he really does need Simmons to keep an eye on his health because there is  _no way_  she just said what he thought she said. He turns to face her and she’s still sitting there, staring at him instead of the view. It occurs to him suddenly that she’s probably looking at him because he’s not several thousand feet of open air. It also occurs to him that she’s smiling like she‘s got a secret.

“Hail HYDRA,” she says.

He curses. A lot.

She laughs. Also a lot.

“Oh calm down,” she snaps before he can form real sentences. (Although some of his more creative curses definitely count.) “I got her to decrypt your damn hard drive before I knocked her out.”

Well that’s just not possible since they’re still on their way to the only place on Earth the hard drive can be decrypted from. “No, the hard drive-”

“Skye  _lied_ ,” Jemma says, and he’s pretty sure she’s loving that he’s not the all-knowing spy he thought he was. “She found Koenig’s body before we left and  _you_  didn’t notice a thing was wrong because you were too busy  _kissing_  her. Which, by the way, is exactly why I wasn’t pulled from this mission when Garrett decided he wanted in too.  _Men_.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I’m having a little trouble understanding-”

“Of course you are,” she cuts in. “ _I_  was hand-picked to discover the secret to Coulson’s miraculous recovery. We already knew about the GH-325, we just needed someone who could study it properly - why else would the only person anywhere near qualified as a medic on board a mobile command unit be a biochemist with only the basic medical courses under her belt?”

She lets that sink in a little. He’s beginning to think the real Jemma Simmons - and he’s still having some trouble wrapping his mind around the idea of a  _fake_  Jemma Simmons - is a bit of a condescending bitch.

“But of course Garrett had to go and muck everything up by sending you in and then orchestrating events so that Skye would be shot. I had already learned months ago that the GH-325 left no traces in the patient’s body, but thanks to Garrett, I got to learn it all over again because the only vial recovered had to be used on Skye. 

“Which, don’t get me wrong, I do not regret for one moment. I love the girl. But this all could have gone  _so_  much more smoothly.”

Grant lets most of that pass because he’s just not prepared to deal with it yet - especially not the implication that  _he_  was a problem. “So you knew the whole time that I was a spy?” He can feel her disdain and cuts her off before she can remind him that everyone knew he was a spy. “For HYDRA, I mean.”

Her lips curl into a smile. “And you had no idea I was.”

He grits his teeth and turns his attention back to the sky. “So you got the hard drive.”

“Yes,” she says, her smile fading. “I thought we might head straight to Portland.” Before he can tell her what a  _terrible_  idea that is, she hurries on. “We both care about Skye, no matter what our true loyalties, and the team isn’t expecting us. We can drop her somewhere and be well on our way before she wakes up to incriminate us.” She tilts her head, her expression dripping mock-pity. “Or were you hoping to keep her even after everything?”

He pulls a face. Yeah, he likes Skye - even likes her more than he should - but he’s not stupid enough to think she’s not gonna hate him for this. Dragging her kicking and screaming into HYDRA doesn’t exactly sound like his idea of a worthwhile relationship.

His eyes track towards Simmons, curled up in the chair. (He wonders if those conservative clothes are part of the act.) He doesn’t have the same feelings for her that he does for Skye, but he also doesn’t have to drag her kicking and screaming anywhere. Plus, he definitely owes her for that men comment. Yeah, he got sloppy, but there’s no way she’s better than he is - even if he never had any idea she was HYDRA too - and it looks like he’s gonna have plenty of time to prove that to her.

“So,” she says, “was it Garrett?”

He remembers her earlier question about his injuries. “Oh, yeah. Had to make it look good, right?”

She hums deep in her throat and climbs out of the chair. “Then I’m sure he won’t mind when I shoot him. To make it look good, of course.”

She doesn’t look back as she heads out the door, so she misses Grant’s smile. Maybe it’s not gonna be hard to put her in her place after all. Sure, Garrett’ll get a little bit shot, but Grant’ll get to have some fun with Simmons. The _real_ Simmons. Who he’s beginning to think is a whole lot more fun that the fake version.


	8. "You need to sleep sometime"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "You need to sleep sometime."

Jemma perks up as inspiration hits. “Maybe if we decrease the size of the chamber-”

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

She scowls at Ward, who’s leaning casually in the doorway and letting all the filthy cargo bay air in. (Not that it doesn’t always get in, but he’s letting  _more_  of it in and she’s certain he’s doing it on purpose just to annoy her.) “Well, I’m talking to Fitz, of-” The rest of the statement dies on her tongue as she finds that the lab is quite deserted. “Where is Fitz?”

“He went to bed an hour ago,” Ward says, making it sound like an accusation.

Fitz went to bed? When they’re on the verge of a breakthrough? “Is he ill?” 

Ward rolls his eyes and steps into the lab. Just this morning - well, yesterday morning at this point - Skye was trying to tell her how imposing Ward is when he’s up against a foe. Jemma knows, academically, that he must be. It’s part of his job. But until this moment she hasn’t quite believed it. Ward is the socially inept lunk who pushes her out of the way of bullets and subdues the enemy so that she can continue her work in peace. She’s sure he does this using bullets and fists and that sort of thing, but she’s never much cared. So she’s never really seen him fill a room the way he does now, his mere presence enough to frighten very frightening men.

“No,” he says, some of his presence fading away, “Fitz is not  _ill._  He’s asleep.”

Well, that’s cleared up exactly nothing. “But  _why_?” she asks, feeling rather like a teacher trying to walk a child through a basic math problem he just isn't grasping. “Fitz would never go to sleep when there was still so much work to be done.”

“You’ve been up for nearly forty hours,” Ward says dryly.

She waves the number away and it’s only when she’s lifting her elbow awkwardly to avoid hitting him, that she realizes he’s standing over her. She’s been watching him the whole time and never noticed him closing the distance between them. That is a new and frightening level of sneaky that she’s eager to study.

“We used to stay up far longer,” she says. Maybe it has something to do with his clothes. She would have thought the black would make him stand out in the bright lab, but maybe she’s missing something. Could it be how tight they are? That t-shirt is fairly clinging to him, meaning it takes up no extra room in her vision. “You should’ve seen us during finals week,” she adds absently.

“Finals week was a long time ago.”

“And Fitz and I still routinely ignore sleep to keep working with no trouble. I have a hard time believing he’s gone to bed unless there’s something wrong.”

Ward shrugs and the way the black shirt stretches and shifts around his muscles distracts her. There is no way that makes him less noticeable. “Technically there  _was_  something wrong with Fitz. I drugged him.”

“What!” she demands, her eyes flying up to Ward. Only he’s no longer there. And neither is she. Before she knows what’s happened she’s up, several feet above the ground, held firmly in Ward’s arms. “What are you doing?” she asks carefully. Clearly there’s something wrong with Ward and she needs to keep them both as calm as possible until she can get her hands on an ICER. They’re leaving the lab and headed for the stairs, but maybe he has one on his person that she can grab.

“You need to sleep sometime,” he says like she’s an unruly child. “I tried asking and telling - at least Fitz ate the sedative-laced brownies I brought down.”

It’s at least a relief to know Fitz isn’t dying. Assuming Ward knows how to safely administer a sedative via baked goods, anyway.

“You can’t force us to bed, Ward. We’re  _adults_.”

He actually scoffs and stops to stare down his nose at her. “Adults know when to stop working with the highly dangerous chemicals and go to bed before they blow up the Bus.”

“I know my limits and am perfectly capable-”

“Simmons,” he cuts in, sounding more than a little tired himself, “please just go to bed.”

Well, if he’s asking nicely… 

She won’t fight him, but she’s not happy about it. She crosses her arms over her chest, not caring if she’s being petulant. Ward smiles and shifts his hold on her a little. She rocks into his chest and her head lands on his shoulder. His shirt really is  _very_  tight, practically not there at all. He starts walking again and there’s something soothing about being carried in someone’s arms. Her eyes drift shut without her permission.

When he reaches her bunk, Grant finds himself trapped. The door is shut and his arms are currently full of a very unconscious scientist. Waking her up just to put her to bed seems like a waste, but he can’t exactly stand here all night. Which is how Skye ends up finding them curled up on one of the couches the next morning.


	9. "Are you a parking ticket?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Are you a parking ticket because you've got fine written all over you?"

Grant bowed out of game night once the drinking became more of a focus than the games. Whatever happened after he left, it’s still going on, as evidenced by Skye’s loud crowing echoing through the Bus’s thin walls. 

It goes against all his training, but he’s seriously considering digging through his drawers for the headphones that came with his personal tablet. They’ll cut his awareness by half, but they’ll drown out Skye, so it might be worth the potential horrible death.

Before he can decide either way, there’s a light tapping at his door and it slides open a crack.

“Simmons?” he asks, genuinely curious as to what brings her here.

She opens the door just far enough that she can slip in and turns her back on him to shut it.

“You okay there?” he asks. Her shoulders are tense and she’s definitely on edge about something. She sighs, her whole body moving with it, and turns. Her face is set like she’s going to the gallows.

“Are you a parking ticket?” she asks, sounding as cool and professional as she does in the lab. “Because you’ve got ‘fine’ written all over you.”

Grant claps his hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. Simmons rolls her eyes, looking at least a little entertained herself.

“We ended up playing truth or dare,” she explains.

“You’re supposed to be the smart one,” he says, some of his control back in place.

“How was I to know Skye has a vicious streak? Now, if you will excuse me, I will report your response as ‘muted laughter.’”

The bunks are small, so all he has to do to stop her is stand up and put a hand on the door, holding it shut. “Whoa whoa  _whoa_. ‘Report’?”

“Yes?” she says uncertainly. They’re so close that he can smell the beer on her breath. “The dare was that I deliver a pick-up line of Skye’s choosing and then report back to her your reaction. Although I’m not sure how else she could possibly have imagined this going, unless she was hoping you’d be so embarrassed you actually blushed.” She looks closely at him and he has to school his thoughts to keep from blushing right now. “So I’ll just be going…”

His hand is still on the door, stopping her. It’s a stupid thought that’s running around his brain right now, but he really wants to act on it anyway.

“How about we make it worth your embarrassment?” he asks. Before she can guess what he’s up to, he leans down to press his lips to hers. Her eyes are wide, never leaving his, and the kiss is nothing more than chaste, but it leaves him warm all over. “There,” he says, resolutely keeping his eyes on her face instead of following the path of her blush. “Skye’s reaction when you report _that_ oughta be worth it.”

Simmons nods silently and, when he opens the door for her, steps automatically through it. He closes it behind her and returns to the bed. Moments later he hears Skye’s shocked, “WHAT!” and smiles. 

Grant closes his eyes and puts a hand to his mouth. Eventually someone’s gonna realize that he didn’t drink nearly enough earlier to be  _that_  out of it and he’ll have to come up with a real explanation, but for now, he’s finally kissed Simmons. That’s definitely worth some uncomfortable moments down the road. Especially if he can find an excuse to do it again.


	10. "Mind if I sleep here tonight?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Mind if I sleep here tonight?"
> 
> It should be noted that this takes place in a fic universe I haven't started posting yet. (And at the rate it's going, might never.) So what you need to know is that canon!Ward has switched universes with his not-evil doppelganger from another universe. This particular fic has canon!Jemma interacting with the not-evil doppelganger.

She’s still on edge, her nerves abuzz and her heart throbbing with her earlier fear, so the faint sound of footsteps stopping just outside her door is probably a lot less intimidating than she takes it to be. Still, better safe than sorry. She picks her ICER up from her bedside table and pulls the door open with one swift tug.

Ward is standing at the other end of her gun and her finger twitches. Not so much as to fire, but enough that she knows - and _he_ knows - that her first inclination was to shoot him.

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to- Did I wake you?” 

This is not her Ward, she reminds herself firmly. This is the one who Coulson trusts, who claims he’s from somewhere so very different and yet so very similar to here. She might have asked to study him by now - just a little - if he wore anyone else’s face.

She drops the ICER to her side. “No. I was just about to go to bed though. Do you need something?”

He looks her over, head to toes and back again. It’s not the first time he’s done it, not even the first time today. She supposes that’s because she was undercover when he first arrived and he’s never quite reassured himself that his team is still whole here. Or as whole as it can be without him.

She looks away. They were  _never_  whole with Ward. He was a lie, nothing more.

“Jemma?” His hand on her arm startles her. He pulls away immediately, even backing up a step. “Sorry!” he says, holding up his hands in surrender. “You had me worried there. I called your name but you didn’t…” He looks at her carefully. “Are you okay?”

She shudders, her shoulders trying to shake off the feel of him. It wasn’t slimy or painful or mean-spirited, and it terrifies her to think _her_ Ward’s touch would feel as pleasant. “Fine,” she says tightly. “Now if that’s all…”

It’s her turn to take a step back so that she can close the door, but he follows her, stopping just outside the threshold. 

“Actually,” he says, but then doesn’t follow it up. His hand hovers in the air, first reaching but never landing at his throat and then fisting to tap at her doorframe as if he can pound out the words he’s seeking. He hisses in a breath, bracing himself for whatever he’s about to say. “Mind if I sleep here tonight?”

She’s so thrown by the question, the obvious answer -  _NO_  - gets stuck behind the whirl of confused thoughts in her brain.

“I don’t mean like- I can sleep on the floor.” He’s not looking at her. It’s a textbook sign of lying - whether because he can’t face her with it or because he’s trying to hide his guilt. Or maybe he’s just embarrassed by the request, the same way she once would have thought the other Ward would be.

“Why?” She doesn’t know she’s going to ask until it’s out and then she’s forced to wonder what’s keeping her from slamming the door in his face. She can’t actually be considering this can she?

He lets out a ragged breath that might be a laugh. “Are you serious? You were kidnapped by  _HYDRA_ today.”

“Only for a little over an hour. The team got me out.”  _He_  got her out. The look in his eyes when he burst into the interrogation room, when he shot every HYDRA agent there without a moment’s hesitation - it would be so simple if that was all there was, but then he looked at her and he … changed. His fingers shook as he undid the cuffs holding her down and his hands moved over her whole body, never touching her but checking everywhere for signs of injury. And she thought, for a brief moment before Skye came barreling in, that he was about to hug her. Or perhaps something else. She hugs her arms around herself.

“I’m worried about you,” he says. “I know you’re safe now and you can handle yourself, you don’t need me hovering, but-” He finally meets her eyes and she still doesn‘t know just what she‘s seeing in his face. “I still worry about you.”

She wants to say yes, she realizes. She wants to let him in and pretend, if only for a few hours, that Ward is still someone who cares about her well-being, someone who can keep her safe. But this Ward is not that Ward and that Ward certainly doesn’t care about her or any of them.

“Well,” she says, keeping her tone businesslike, “as you said, I’m fine now. So you can sleep easy in your own quarters.”

He pushes away from the wall, nodding emphatically. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m just being silly. Night, Jem.” He walks away, leaving her frozen to the spot by the use of the nickname.

It takes her a long time to fall asleep and she wakes up earlier than usual, unwilling to face her nightmares again. She’s not nearly as surprised as she should be when she opens her door to head to the bathroom and finds Ward sleeping across the threshold.


	11. sharing a bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: sharing a bed

When the time comes to split up, Grant follows Simmons. She makes it all the way to her hotel room door before turning to face him.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“You shouldn’t sleep alone,” he says. They made a pretty clean getaway back there, but there’s always the chance someone’s on their tail and, if so, they won’t be going for the two big, strong men. They’ll be going for the tiny scientist who’s three rooms down. 

He can see her gearing up to argue so he puts on a pained expression and glances over his shoulder. Garrett’s already long gone into what’s supposed to be his and Grant’s room. “And honestly,“ he says, leaning close like he‘s sharing a secret, “I really don’t wanna sleep with Garrett if I can help it.” He shudders overdramatically. “The things I’ve seen working with that man.”

Jemma giggles. “All right, fine. I’d better not regret this though.”

“Scout’s honor.”

They’re waiting for an overdue extraction on what was supposed to be a one day mission, so there’s not much either of them can do to get ready for bed. He uses the bathroom first - “to make sure there aren’t any axe murderers” - while she rolls her eyes, and then he lays down on the floor beside the single bed. Lucky for him, there are two pillows, which puts this on his good list of make-shift beds he’s slept in. Or it would, up until Simmons comes out of the bathroom.

“No,” she says firmly, hands on her hips.

“’No’ what?” he asks, turning onto his back and shading his eyes from the exposed bulb in the ceiling. She’s wearing nothing but her button down, giving him an all too easy view of her powder blue underwear.

“No, you are not sleeping on the floor. Not with those ribs.”

“My ribs are  _fine_ ,” he says for what has to be the hundredth time today. And for once, it’s the truth. That hit wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked from where she was taking cover.

“Then you will have no trouble climbing to your feet and into the nice, real bed right here.” She folds down the sheet and pats the mattress.

“And where are you gonna sleep?”

“It’s a king bed.”

He gives her a steady look.

“We’re both adults!” she huffs, throwing her arms out. “We’re both professionals. I’ve seen you far less dressed than you are in your boxers and t-shirt and you’ve seen me  _naked_  for Heaven’s sake! I’m sure we can handle sleeping next to one another for a night.”

Oh, she just had to remind him of that. With only one shower on the Bus, someone was bound to see someone else naked sometime, but did it have to be him seeing Simmons? Logically he always knew there was a woman’s body hidden under those almost painfully modest clothes, but knowing and seeing are two _very_ different things.

“Come on,” she urges, patting the mattress invitingly like he’s a dog.

He grunts and rolls to his feet. She smiles, proud of herself, and hurries around to the other side. She turns the light out as she goes and then he can feel her slight weight depressing the mattress beside him. She shifts and scoots and all in all spends at least twice as long as he did getting comfortable.

“There now, isn’t this better?”

“Loads,” he says and hopes she thinks he’s just being prickly over her throwing her weight around. The truth - that he can feel the warmth of her body and would like nothing more than to roll over on top of her - is not something he wants to broadcast.

She makes a humming noise but doesn’t say anything else. Her breathing evens out slowly. He waits five minutes after that and then lets himself fall asleep.

* * *

He’s in the water, trying to get his head above the waves, trying to hold Simmons up with him. She slips from his arms. There and gone in a flash. He reaches, searches, can’t feel her nearby. He dives but he can only make it a few feet before his lungs burn. He goes back up, heaves in a breath, dives, and stumbles on the edge of the cargo ramp. They’re in mid-flight but there’s no wind, only the sound of Simmons in the ocean below, begging him to let the rope down.

“Good job, Agent Ward.” It’s Blake’s voice, congratulating him on following orders, but when he turns around it’s Garrett standing there, holding the rope. He smiles as he throws the coil out.

No.  _No_ , that’s wrong. That’s not how it goes.

Grant follows the rope with his eyes. Simmons is still calling for help, her voice growing weaker as water fills her lungs. But now there are two Simmonses. One is dying and the other is calling his name over and over. Her hands are on his arm, his chest, his face. He can feel her weight on top of him. Her legs are tangled with his. He can just make out her face above him and reaches up, tangling his fingers in her hair as he drags her down for a kiss.

That silences both of them.

She goes still as a board over him. He presses his mouth more insistently against hers, searching for access. His arm snakes around her back and that’s enough to have her melting into him.

That’s about the moment he realizes what’s happening, remembers the op and his own stupid insistence on sleeping with Simmons. It’s also the moment he decides not to stop.


	12. Sleeping Death

There aren’t a lot of things Grant loves more than beating up Kaiju.

When he’s in the Drift, it’s like everything outside fades away. His family, his criminal record, his entire fuck-up of a life. All that’s left is simple, easy destruction. Protecting people he cares about from giant, world-ending monsters. It’s capital-G good work and Grant is good at it. It’s more than he’d ever have dreamed of from life and he knows how lucky he is to have it.

There aren’t a lot of things Grant loves more, but one of them is always waiting for him when he climbs out of his Jaeger.

He’s stiff and hurting from the fight but he doesn’t hesitate to drop to one knee and meet Buddy with open arms. 

"Yeah, yeah, I missed you too," he says through slobbery kisses. "Thought about you the whole time I was gone."

"Oh good," Trip says as he passes them by, "I was worried that was me."

The techs and medics are eager to look at both men and machine, so Grant reluctantly disentangles himself from Buddy. The dog’s used to this and lets Grant do it, but he also sticks so close that Grant has to be careful not to trip over him.

Grant knows the routine. He lets them check him over head to toes and accepts their orders to take things easy for a day or two and ice his bruised muscles without argument. He’s just getting released when Buddy, now curled up around his feet, perks up. Grant barely has time to notice before Buddy lets out a happy bark and runs off.

"Buddy!" Grant yells and completely ignores the orders he just received by running after him. Halfway across the Jaeger bay he finds Buddy, tail wagging and tongue out in pure joy.

There aren’t a lot of things Grant loves more than beating up Kaiju, and one of them is crooning over his dog right now.

"Buddy," Grant says. He tries to sound unhappy but can’t quite manage it. His mouth’s kind of busy smiling.

"Oh, don’t be mad," Jemma says, rubbing a hand up and down Buddy’s side. Buddy’s back leg taps frantically against the floor.

"He didn’t hurt anything, did he?" 

"Nearly did!" Fitz yells. He’s there too of course, not that Grant noticed him before now. His arms are full of tools and devices Grant can’t hope to understand and he looks like he’s afraid Buddy’s gonna lunge any second. Which is absurd. Why would he go for Fitz when he’s got Jemma?

"We’re fine," Jemma says. The fond expression she wears for Buddy lasts as she looks to Grant and his heart swells, just a little. She rubs Buddy’s ears one last time before rising gracefully to her feet. "We heard you brought us back a sample," she says excitedly.

Buddy’s already been forgotten now that she has science to look forward to but he doesn’t seem to care. He sits between the two of them, tail wagging as he looks from one to the other.

"Yeah," Grant says. "I’m no scientist but I’m pretty sure we got its guts wrapped around the left arm."

"Intestines!" Jemma cries and runs off to investigate.

"Around the  _arm_?!” Fitz yells, scandalized. He throws Grant a glare before following Jemma as quickly as he can with his arms full.

Grant watches them go - watches Jemma go, really - and scratches Buddy’s head absently. After a few seconds Buddy turns away. Grant looks down and finds him inhaling a treat out of Trip’s hand.

"How long," Trip asks slowly, "did it take you to train him to run for Simmons every time she shows up?"

"I have no idea what you’re talking about," Grant says and walks away. Buddy’s nails clip along the concrete at his side as they go.

"Uh huh," Trip says loudly after him. "Next time why don’t you just bring her a Kaiju heart and get it over with?"

"Saving that for Valentine’s Day!" Grant yells over his shoulder. He wasn’t, actually, but that heart thing is a pretty good idea and he’s not about to encourage Trip by telling him so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is a follow-up to this one.


	13. PacRim AU (again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Pacific Rim AoS AU DVD Commentary B (That is, the story from another character's POV.)
> 
> The original PacRim AU is the previous chapter if you want to reacquaint yourself.

Jemma is in the middle of arguing a very important point with Fitz about the destructive power of a single Kaiju, when a familiar rapid tapping sounds nearby. Mid-sentence her voice shifts, going rounder and lower, becoming more fond. Her words however, do not change and she trusts Fitz to recognize that. He might not though, since the tapping is immediately followed by Ranger Ward’s beautiful chocolate lab.

Fitz lets out a strangled cry and has to scramble to keep his equipment from falling to the floor. Once he’s settled, he begins cursing a blue streak.

“Oh, hush, Fitz,” Jemma says, still in that soothing tone of voice she reserves just for Buddy. “He’s just coming to say hello. Aren’t you, my beautiful boy? Aren’t you?”

“Why do you repeat everything you say around him?”

“So that he knows I love him.”

Fitz makes a sound she assumes comes with a disgusted expression. She doesn’t bother turning to look.

“ _Buddy_.” As usual, Buddy’s master is quick to arrive after him.

“Oh, don’t be mad,” Jemma says, still petting Buddy so that he knows everything’s all right. 

Again as usual, Ward asks if Buddy’s hurt anything. Not that he ever would, the sweetheart. Perhaps on accident he might knock someone down in his excitement, but never on purpose, and he’d always do his utmost to make them feel better with lots of slobbery kisses. As Jemma knows from experience.

“He nearly did!” Fitz snaps.

“We’re  _fine_ ,” Jemma says, giving Ward a smile to reassure him of the fact. She doesn’t want Fitz’s complaining giving him the idea Buddy needs to be tied up. “We heard you brought us back a sample,” she adds, hoping to change the subject. 

She gives Buddy one final pat before rising to her feet. She still has to look up to face Ward - the man is terribly tall - but less so than before. He smiles fondly. Like her voice, she imagines this is something he reserves for times when Buddy is particularly rambunctious. Which, admittedly, is often, but she sees so much of the smile that it’s sometimes hard to believe Ward is considered one of the more frightening men among the Rangers. Not that she’s complaining, it is a lovely smile.

“Yeah. I’m no scientist, but I think we got its guts wrapped around the left arm.”

“Intestines!” Jemma cries, and hurries off, with an agonized Fitz close at her heels. There’s _so_ much they can learn from the contents of a Kaiju’s digestive tract. 

“You know,” Fitz says softly as they push through the crowd of engineers and techs already working on the Jaeger, “Ward likes you.”

“Of course he does,” Jemma says absently. “He’s a dog person. He’ll take to anyone who likes Buddy. He’d like you too if you’d just stop complaining about the poor thing.” She slips on a pair of gloves and begins examining what is most definitely intestines dangling from the arm.

“Not like that,” Fitz snaps. “He  _likes_  you. I’ll bet he even trained that mutt of his to harass you just so he’d have the excuse to talk to you.”

“That is absurd,” she says shortly and pitches her voice to her surrounding subordinates. “We need to get this on ice as soon as possible. I want it removed carefully. Keep it as intact as you can. No unnecessary further damage.”

“Oh yeah? How fast did he tell you about the intestines?”

“Because that’s my  _job_.”

Fitz scoffs. “Lorenzo!” he calls to one of the maintenance workers. “Which side was Ward?”

“Left,” Lorenzo says readily. Fitz makes a sweeping gesture as if that proves everything.

Jemma barely notices. She’s not looking at the intestines anymore, but at the damage to the Jaeger’s left side. There are safeguards in the drift meant to protect the pilots, but an unavoidable biproduct of plugging one’s brain into a machine like this, is the phantom injuries caused by some combination of the technology and the brain’s own ability to influence the body. Even a glancing blow can feel like a real one to a pilot hooked up to a Jaeger.

“He was smiling,” she says softly, eyes on the massive gash that’s all but torn off the left breastplate. “He must have been in terrible pain, but he was smiling.”

The brain, as Jemma is well aware, is a powerful thing. Happiness, like the kind that comes from seeing a pet - or a loved one - can chase away pain entirely.

“Yeah,” Fitz says, most of his annoyance gone. “Because he  _likes_  you.” 

Fitz must be wrong. He has to be. But for a moment Jemma allows herself to imagine that Ward’s fond smile, the one that lights up his whole face, is in fact a product of seeing her. There’s a warm feeling in her chest.

“Oh, I may be in some trouble.”


	14. unexpected encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: unexpected parental encounters
> 
> Note: I got the prompters permission to not-quite do what was asked for.

Grant can’t help the curse that slips out, but he has the good sense not to lunge behind the nearest column. Instead he calmly turns away - his brain screaming at him not to take his eyes off the threat - and wanders until he’s out of sight.

“Ward?” Coulson asks, sounding tense. Last Grant saw, he and May were on the dance floor. He eases to one side so they can see he’s all right.

“I’ve gotta get out of here.” It’s more a plea than he’d like. His heart is pounding like he’s holding the staff again, but he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He just wants to run.

“Aw,” Skye says, “is somebody allergic to class?” She can talk; she practically assaulted one of the servers earlier.

“No,” Grant says tightly, “but somebody  _is_  in danger of being made. I have to go. The rest of you aren't safe with me here.”

Coulson doesn’t look happy about it, but he nods curtly as he spins May out of Grant’s sight. “Go on. Stay with Fitz in the van. If there’s trouble-”

“I’ll come back,” he promises. He takes the long route around the room to the exit, even though all he wants is to run straight across the dance floor and not stop until he’s back on the Bus. He smiles at people he passes like he knows them and even stops to take an hors d’oeuvre from a passing tray. It’s stupid, but he lets his eyes drift over the crowd, searching for the face he recognizes. 

Skye is shooting him worried glances and nibbling nervously on hors d’oeuvres (she’s got her own private waiter standing at her elbow now). Coulson and May are too professional to look his way, but he can see the stress this has them under. He needs to get gone so the mission can proceed safely.

He finally catches sight of the man he’s looking for. He’s talking and smiling, even laughing, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. All that is enough to make Grant’s blood boil and convince him he really does have to get out of here. But when he sees who he’s talking to, Grant sees red. His feet are moving before he’s even sure what’s happening and in what seems like a heartbeat he’s across the room, snaking an arm around Jemma’s back to grip her waist and pull her firmly into his side. Her heels give her enough height that he doesn’t have to bend too far to press his forehead against her hair.

“Hello, sweetheart, I didn’t keep you waiting too long, did I?”

Jemma’s frozen by his sudden move, but luckily everyone important is fixed on Grant. (Including Coulson, who’s barely keeping his voice to a low growl as he demands to know what the hell Grant’s doing.)

Grant slowly turns to their audience. “Hello, Christian,” he says. “Long time no see.”

Christian’s a born politician, so he doesn’t react visibly. He pastes on his campaign smile. “Grant,” he says, sounding pleasantly surprised. He lifts his arms slightly - does he think they’re gonna _hug_? Grant keeps a firm hold of Jemma. Christian turns the movement into a slap on the shoulder. “It’s been too long.”

Grant resists the urge to hit him back.  _Hard_. “I was thinking the opposite,” he says in a perfectly friendly tone. Neither of their smiles break.

Christian looks to Jemma, his eyes lingering in a way that has Grant holding her tighter. She twists into him, her hands landing on his chest as she holds back a hiss. 

“Jenny and I were just having a lovely conversation.” (Grant thanks any deity who’s listening that he finally convinced Jemma to try using a fake name, even one as lame as “Jenny.”) “You’re a lucky man to snag such a beautiful girlfr-”

“Wife,” Grant says quickly. In Grant’s ear, Skye is choking. Jemma looks up  sharply but, once again, Christian’s attention is all on Grant.

“Really?” he asks, obviously more than a little stunned. His eyes move down and Grant quickly catches Jemma’s left hand where it rests against his chest, hiding her lack of ring. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Grant says, the words like glass in his throat. “Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

“Of course. Let’s not wait ten years next time.”

Grant smiles as he maneuvers Jemma onto the dance floor. “Twenty sounds so much better.” He doesn’t relax a hair until they’ve made it well into the center of the room.

“So that was your-”

“Brother,” Grant finishes. He’s still got a death grip on her hand and forces himself to move his hand to her back where it’s supposed to be.

Jemma nods slowly. When he doesn’t elaborate, she asks the question that’s probably on everyone else’s minds. “And you thought exposing yourself and telling him we’re married was the way to maintain a low profile?”

Grant keeps his eyes fixed firmly over her shoulder. “My brother isn’t a good person.”

“Well I gathered that-”

“No,” he cuts in. She doesn’t understand. “He’s used to getting what he wants - and getting rid of people in his way,” he adds bitterly. “He liked you.”

She tilts her head, regarding him with a  fond expression. She bends close to him. “I’m  _undercover_ ,” she whispers. “I doubt anything would have come of it.”

Grant scoffs. “You don’t know my brother.” 

He knows it sounds crazy, but he  _saw_  the look on Christian’s face when he was talking to Jemma. Grant rubs his hand up and down Jemma’s back and pulls her a little closer. “Jenny” doesn’t exist and it’s not that Grant thinks his brother would  _take_  her or anything, but he knows for a fact that Christian has used his position and his power to manipulate women into bed. And seeing him talking to Jemma … Grant just acted. He barely even thought about it.

“I made you unavailable,” he says.

“Jenny Summers is the very definition of unavailable. She doesn’t exist.”

Grant doesn’t have an answer for that, so he just keeps on dancing with her. 

She sighs and leans her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for saving me anyway. He  _was_  rather insufferable.”

Grant smiles - it’s not exactly the word he would use, but it’ll do - and rests his chin on top of her head as they sway.


	15. Superman AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Biospecialist/Superman crossover!! In which Jemma is a chemist too distracted by her job to notice that her boyfriend Ward disappears at least twice a day at exactly the same time Superman appears to handle a crisis--until the day she does.

HYDRA is attacking the lab. Again. This makes the third time this week and it’s only Tuesday.

Don’t they ever get _tired_?

And how can they really expect to find anything useful when they’re constantly interrupting her research?

“Are you all right?” Superman’s noble, heroic voice (yes, it is, though Jemma never would have believed it possible for a voice to carry those adjectives before she began working in SHIELD Labs and this became a regular occurrence) is right in her ear, likely because he saved her from being crushed by the falling ceiling. They just had that replaced last week!

“Fine,” she says, pushing out of his hold and standing to brush the dust from her lab coat. It’s a futile effort, since the air is thick with the stuff, but it’s something to do as she surveys the scene. The lab is, miraculously, in rather good shape. The ceiling fell only over where she was standing and, with it being just after lunch, most of the experiments are still safely tucked away, so they’re in no danger of their being compromised by the dust in the air. Superman has even used the emergency door they installed last month, which is a miracle unto itself.

He is also hovering (literally) at her side.

“Shouldn’t you be seeing to HYDRA?” she asks pointedly. “They might be getting away.” This does not inspire him to move, so she does, climbing over the fallen ceiling panels to see to the others. Superman takes her arm to steady her.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he presses.

She gives him a disapproving look. “If you’re so worried, you _do_ have that x-ray vision.” She tries to pull her hand out of his grip but he’s gone oddly still.

“You- _what_? You don’t think it’s an invasion of privacy?”

She pointedly does not answer until he releases her hand, at which point she gives what she considers a rather impressive roll of her eyes and walks away to take charge of clean-up. “If it will make you feel better,” she throws over her shoulder, which is by far the least insulting response on her tongue. She doubts it will make much difference by this point - Grant and his men in security will surely have rounded up the attackers by now - but he really should be going instead of hanging around here. She has no idea how the man can be the national hero when he always hangs around so awkwardly. She can’t be the only person who gets annoyed, can she? Or perhaps it’s familiarity. Maybe no one else is bothered because they aren’t being saved as often as she is.

“Jemma!” Grant is a blur rushing through the door and into her arms. Or, rather, she is in _his_ arms, seeing as he’s quite a bit bigger than she is.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she says again, but much more fondly this time. She hugs him back, glad to find he’s all right too, and eases back to get a better look at him. “Did you catch them?”

He nods, his arms still wrapped around her. He squeezes her shoulders and she has no illusions about whether or not he’s checking for injuries.

“I really am fine” she laughs. “Superman saved us from the blast.” 

Grant’s eyes drift over her shoulder to the others, already busy at work cleaning up. She follows his gaze, half expecting to see Superman still hovering, but it seems he’s finally gone.

“You sure?” he asks.

She goes up on her toes to kiss his cheek before getting to work. “You’re worse than Superman,” she laughs.

 

* * *

 

She regrets it later, which she blames entirely on Fitz. He comes by later in the afternoon to see that everything’s all right and when she questions what took him so long, he reveals that it wasn’t only her lab that was hit.

“Well then all the more reason!” she huffs, instantly annoyed at Superman all over again.

“I’m sorry?” Fitz says, looking utterly perplexed.

“Oh, not _you_. Superman! He saved me from being crushed - which I appreciate, I _do_ \- but then he wouldn’t _go_.” She sighs. “He’s almost more bother than he’s worth, honestly.”

She’s so busy being annoyed that she doesn’t realize how quiet Fitz has gone until he says a tentative, “Jemma?”

“Hm?” she asks, attention immediately on him instead of the microscope she’s trying to repair. (After so many attacks like these, she’s found it simpler to do it herself instead of sending out for new.)

He taps his fist delicately against the tabletop. “Has it ever occurred to you that …”

“Yes?” she prompts.

“That Superman might _like_ you?”

She waves him off. “He’s _Superman_ ,” she says, applying just as much wonder to the name as she feels for the man, “he’s supposed to like everyone, isn’t he?”

Fitz grabs her hand out of the air and sets it on the table, covering it with both of his. His intent expression clues her in that this might be a long time coming. “But he always saves _you_. He saves everyone, yeah, but I’ve never seen him hang around after. Last week, that explosion?” Jemma shudders at the memory of the disaster at the docks. “He got me to safety and was gone before I could even thank him. And you remember when Skye’s favorite coffee shop was poisoned? He didn’t hang around to chat after he saved her.”

“Well, she had just been poisoned,” Jemma says, but it comes out weaker than she’d like. Maybe no one else is bothered by his hovering because no one else has to endure it.

“And a few months ago! When his psycho brother showed up from that other dimension? Seven billion people in the world, and who does he kidnap to draw his little brother out?”

Oh yes, she certainly remembers that. Six hours spent listening to an alien megalomaniac go on and on about how superior he is to “the so-called Superman” and how the Earth should have been his to save or rule as he saw fit. And on her and Grant’s anniversary, too! He was so worried when Superman dropped her off at his apartment. She’d requested he leave her there instead of at her own home; she’d wanted nothing more than to see and be held by Grant and, it seemed, he wanted the same. They spent the whole night in each other’s arms, both reassuring themselves that she was home and safe.

“Oh no,” she says.

“Yeah,” Fitz says, squeezing her hand. “I’m sorry, Jem. Maybe you can talk to the guy?”

“It’s not that!” She pulls away and hurries for the door. “It’s _Grant_. Oh, this is terrible.”

 

* * *

 

Grant is not in his office. Trip tells her he’s gone out to inspect one of their sister sites in wake of the attack. This isn’t exactly something she can discuss with him over the phone, especially not while he’s working, so she sends him a text asking if he’d like to come over for dinner. His reply comes as she’s greeting Fitz on her return to the lab. She’s afraid she might drop off mid-word as she scrambles to see his reply.

 _Sounds great. Eight okay? I’ll pick up Chinese._

Fitz, who has fixed her microscope in her absence, can find no distressing subtext, and neither can Skye when Jemma forwards it to her. She’s not reassured.

She spends the rest of the day in a haze. Grant is the sweetest man she’s ever met. Oh, he can be terrifying when he wants to be. He’s head of security for all SHIELD sites in the region, that kind of responsibility requires some amount of menacing presence. But he’s also kind and caring. He calls his parents every Sunday and sends them half his paycheck. His dog is a stray he just couldn’t bear to leave on the streets. They haven’t even had sex yet, for Heaven’s sake! (Which is sweet and she respects his wishes but, goodness, she wishes he’d loosen up just a little.)

And he knows. He has to know. Apparently everyone in the world thinks Superman has a crush on her, Grant must too. Fitz has been waiting some time (months, he admits when she presses him, ever since she was kidnapped) for the right opportunity to broach the subject. Skye’s immediate thought (as evidenced by a text she sends to Fitz) when faced with the prospect of trouble between Jemma and Grant, is that there’s been a Superman-related blow-up. And it can’t be denied that her lab sees more action than the rest in the building. Even the bad guys have noticed!

Sometime around reaching her apartment (she doesn’t remember the trip home. Did Fitz accompany her? Or was it Trip?), she realizes that they avoid each other. Grant and Superman. She’s never seen the two of them together. Superman certainly has the ability to avoid being around her when Grant is, but there’s also something to be said for Grant’s skills. He can be very sneaky when he wants and Jemma’s sure he engaged in corporate espionage before taking his current position.

She can only imagine how she would feel in his position. What if that Wonder Woman character was always saving him and getting him kidnapped by her enemies? Jemma certainly never would have been able to bite her tongue about it as long as Grant has.

She tries watching some TV to get her mind off it all, but the first thing to come on is a news report about Superman helping recover survivors from a flood in Cambodia and she clicks the TV right off again. With nothing else to do, she cleans. By the time eight o’clock rolls around and the doorbell rings (nearly a quarter of an hour later), the whole apartment is spotless.

“Brought your favorite,” Grant proclaims, holding up the takeout bag from her favorite Chinese place. 

The expected answer, the “you really will have to show me where that place actually _is_ ” collides with her carefully thought-out speech and what tumbles out is, “What do you think of Superman?”

He stumbles a little. “Superman? I like him fine, I guess. Why?”

She turns away to pace the apartment. This is such a mess. Now that she’s ruined her carefully crafted plans to ease into the topic, she can’t find any of her important points. 

Behind her, she hears the door close and the rustle of a plastic bag being set down. “Hey, hey.” Grant’s hands find her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

He’s so sweet, always worried about her well-being. He’s not perfect by any means. He’s got a temper and he has a terrible habit of being late for dates when he’s not missing them entirely. But he’s _hers_ and she wouldn’t have anyone else.

“We should sit down,” she says.

He’s worried, and she’s sorry for that, but she’s sure that what she has to say - when she figures out how to say it - will make them better. He grabs the bag as they make their way to the couch, never once letting go of her.

“All right,” he says once they’re settled. “What’s wrong?”

She should start over, but she can’t quite remember how she meant it to go. The most important part - that she is not interested in Superman _whatsoever_ \- is in there, but it wasn’t her starting point. That was more subtle. 

Grant staring at her certainly doesn’t help. She’s got one arm on the back of the couch and fiddles with the short hairs by his ear. He’s ticklish there and she does so love watching him squirm, plus there’s the bonus, in this instance, of forcing him to look away as he curls into himself.

His own opinion of Superman. That _was_  where she wanted to begin. She was going to confront him with the fact that he and Superman avoid one another. And it _is_ a fact. After hours to think on it, she’s certain it’s true.

He adjusts his glasses carefully and levels her with a stern look. “ _Jemma_.”

Something in her goes still. She’s not sure quite what does it - the fact of his avoidance, the way he said her name just now, his disappearance all afternoon, maybe it’s just those damn glasses - but an idea occurs to her. A mad, impossible idea.

“Jem? You’re really starting to freak me out.” Grant takes the arm that’s in her lap and slides his hand down to her wrist to feel her pulse. But does he have to?

She looks at him long and hard, a million facts she thought were categorized properly in her brain flying about to new locations as she tests the idea against all she knows about Grant Ward. And about Superman.

“You’re Superman,” she says.

Grant is an excellent liar. It’s a skill that’s served him well in his previous careers - and, apparently, his day to day life - but Jemma’s known him for nearly two years now. She knows the signs when he’s cutting part of himself off to better hold to his line.

“You are!” She jumps to her feet, back to her pacing. “That’s why you and Superman are never in the same place! That’s why whenever there’s a disaster somewhere in the city and you run off to ‘see if you can help,’ Superman shows up the next second!” She catches sight of the takeout on her coffee table. “That’s why you never show me where this restaurant is! This is _real_ Chinese food! From _actual_ China!”

“Actually,” Grant says sheepishly as he takes off his glasses, revealing the familiar face, “it’s from San Francisco.”

She whirls, her hands going to her mouth. “Ohmygoodness, you _are_!” Despite her outburst, she wasn’t quite convinced until he said it. He shrugs helplessly and she falls into her seat on the couch. “That’s why you always save me,” she says quietly.

He lays one great hand gently over hers in her lap. “Yeah,” he says, like that one word carries a whole host of confessions. Has he ever saved her and not someone else? He has to have. That kind of a decision must be terrible to make.

“Thank you,” she says, honestly meaning it. A Superman who hovers and gets in her way is one thing, but one who does it because he loves her and cares for her is entirely different.

Grant’s hand settles more firmly over hers, like he’s got permission to touch her now, and he laughs quietly.

“What’s so funny?”

“You haven’t said that to me in a long time.”

Affronted, she smacks his shoulder. “I have! I just said it earlier today when I texted you about dinner!”

He easily catches her hand and presses it over his heart. “No, I mean, the _other_ me.”

“Oh.” She _has_ been rather short with Superman lately. Even before the whole kidnapping incident, she was rather sick of him. “Oh!” she exclaims.

“What?”

“Your brother.”

He sags back into the cushions. “ _Oh._ ” He looks to her, stricken. “I am _so_ sorry about that, you have to believe me.”

She scoots over and presses into his side, wrapping her arms around him. “He was the one who did it, not you. And I’m a little more concerned with _you_. You took quite a beating and you never even gave me any clue.”

“I couldn’t have explained it.”

“Why not?” She’s genuinely curious. He’s obviously not horrified she’s found out, so why hasn’t he told her himself before now?

He lets out a heavy breath. “Lots of reasons. I kind of expected you to be mad about me lying all this time.”

“Don’t worry,” she says pleasantly, “we’ll get back to that.”

He smiles down at her. “And I felt guilty. Not just for the lying but for all the trouble I cause you.”

“Yes,” she sighs, “it does seem like everybody knows, doesn’t it?”

He goes stiff beneath her. “Wait, knows…?”

“About your crush. The other you, I mean. Fitz had a whole speech prepared and Skye was certain any trouble between us was because of - well, because of Superman.”

“Skye,” Grant mutters, rolling his eyes. It's his usual reaction whenever Fitz's girlfriend is mentioned. They've always gotten along well enough (and Skye certainly enjoys teasing him), but Jemma would be a fool not to notice the tension he exudes whenever she’s around.

“Oh no, don’t tell me Skye’s a supervillain of some sort.”

Grant barks out a laugh that it takes him several seconds to recover from. “Oh wow. No. No no no. Skye’s a pain, but she’s not _that_ kind of pain.” He laces his fingers with hers on his chest. “You’re okay? Really?” He’s not asking about the lying she’s promised they’ll address later. This is about the simple fact of his other identity.

“I’m not sure,” she says honestly. “I only just realized, so it will take some time to get accustomed to.” His grip on her loosens a little, like he’s already resigning himself to losing her. She presses closer against him. “But I’m sure I can. Eventually. You’re not getting rid of me that easy, Grant Ward.” He smiles and brings her hand up to kiss her knuckles. “Though you really do have to stop that hovering thing you do after saving me. It’s sweet, now that I know, but I’d much rather have the real you there to hug.”

“And kiss,” he reminds her.

She pushes herself up to do just that. “And kiss.”


	16. "I thought you were dead."

“Stop,” Ward says. The good-natured order isn’t meant for Jemma, but it stops her anyway. From where she is, she can hear the conversation coming through the med-pod’s open door, but can’t see or be seen by those inside.

“I’m  _ready_ ,” Skye insists. “Really, I’m ready for anything that’s not these four walls and hourly blood draws from _Dr. Simmons_. I can’t believe I miss the days when she was saying she’s ‘not that kind of doctor.’”

Skye’s British accent is abysmal and Jemma’s only glad she didn’t see whatever face she pulled in her impersonation.

“She still does,” Ward says. “Just … not in here.”

“So, what? SHIELD doesn’t think I’m good enough for a real doctor?” She’s laughing when she says it but there’s some genuine hurt in there as well. Jemma bites her tongue. The truth is Coulson refuses to allow anyone else to look at Skye. He wouldn’t even let Triplett near her after the injection. Which is all the more reason Jemma needs to figure out just what this GH-325 is. She grips her tools firmly and makes to step forward.

“Skye-” There’s a pull in Ward’s voice that stops Jemma dead before her foot can even lift off the ground.

“But if they don’t think I  _need_  one,” Skye says craftily, “maybe that’s enough reason for a certain someone to let me out?”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“Oh, come on! Why not?”

“I thought you were dead!” Ward yells. Jemma is already still but her whole body tenses, like an animal sensing a predator. “I thought you were  _dead_ ,” he says again, his voice tight like it was when he was under the influence of the berserker staff. “When I saw you lying there … I’ve never seen anyone lose that much blood and live, Skye. If I’d done that to someone, I would’ve walked away and counted them as done for. So you’re gonna stay in this bed until Simmons says you’re clear to go. Understood?”

“…Yeah. Yeah, understood.” Jemma feels about as rattled as Skye sounds. She shouldn’t be though. It’s not as though she ever seriously thought- And it was plain to see Ward’s feelings the last few days, she shouldn’t be surprised by his outburst now. He’s probably been holding it in for far too long.

“Good.” She can hear him moving. “I’ve gotta go finish my report. I’ll be back later, okay?”

“You’d better,” Skye says, covering up her discomfort well.

Jemma catches sight of Ward moving towards the door, his back to her thank goodness. She turns for the lab, immediately realizes there is no chance she can make it without him seeing, and turns back around to face her fate.

“Whoa!” Ward says, catching her by her elbows. “Sorry, I - didn’t see you there.” He really must be emotionally compromised if that’s the case. His hands are still on her arms, nervously rubbing like he’s afraid she’ll fall if he lets go. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she says a touch too quickly. He raises an eyebrow. She is obviously not fine. She shrugs and he lets go, leaving her feeling oddly unfettered. “Just a little emotional, I guess.” It’s not a lie - because she can’t lie - but it  _is_  calculated to earn his sympathy and get him gone faster.

He nods, moving past her. “Yeah.”

She watches him go and counts to a hundred before daring to return to the lab. She can live without this hour’s blood sample and, for the first time since Italy, she simply doesn’t want to see Skye.


	17. turncoats and transportations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grant and Jemma on an alien planet. What _won't_ go wrong?
> 
>  
> 
> [Not a prompt fill, but a quick, cracky mini-fic begun during the hiatus between seasons 1 and 2.]

“No,” Grant says firmly. Simmons, crouched down on the ground at his feet, looks over her shoulder to glare at him. 

“I will remind you,” she says in that huffy tone of voice she always uses around him now, “that you are no longer in my chain of command and there is no planet in the _universe_ on which I would obey an order from you.”

They’re currently standing on an actual alien planet, hence the comment. They’re there because Loki. Grant doesn’t really feel it needs more explanation than that and he’s pretty sure when the rest of the team (okay,  _the team_ , he’s not exactly a member anymore and they only let him out of the Cage because  _alien planet_ ) write their reports on this, most of them will explain the situation with just those two words. Because Loki.

“Yeah,” Grant says, “except Coulson told me that if I let you get hurt he would give me to Admiral Ross as a new human test subject, so I’m still gonna go with  _no_.”

Simmons stands to face him, which would be fine except she picks up the thing while she does. She’s _holding an alien_. In her  _hands_. This is gonna turn out so horribly.

“It’s harmless,” she insists, holding it out to him as if he’d actually be stupid enough to take it.

“It’s an  _alien_. You don’t know the first thing about it. It could be getting ready to eat your hands.”

“And how do you suppose it would do that?” 

She’s got a point. He can’t see a mouth anywhere on the thing. Or anything at all for that matter. It looks like Cousin Itt from  _The Addams Family_  only round and small enough to fit in Simmons’ palm.

“Isn’t that your job to know?” he asks, eyeing it warily.

“Exactly!” 

She’s excited. Crap, she’s excited. How is he ever gonna get her to put the damn thing down now?

“We’ve never encountered a species like this one before. Studying it would be the chance of a lifetime!”

“Don’t you have enough samples?” he asks. She’s taken samples of everything on this rock - including a lot of rocks. All of that should be plenty to keep her busy. She doesn’t need an alien on top of that.

“None like this.” Is she  _petting_  it?

“Are you petting it?”

“It’s very sweet. See?” She holds it out again and it makes an odd chirping noise.

“Did it just growl at me?”

“Well it  _should_ ,” she says tartly, apparently only just remembering that she hates him. “But that doesn’t sound like any growl I’ve ever heard.”

“But you don’t  _know_. Because it’s an  _alien_.” She looks about ready to defend the thing so he barrels on. “It could be getting ready to eat you or plant its eggs under your skin.”

“It’s a mammal - presumably.”

“It could be sizing you up for some sort of mind control. It could be a baby with a mother that’s gonna show up any minute and kill us. It could be  _intelligent_. It could be an intelligent baby, who you’re about to kidnap from its home planet.” He shakes his head in mock-shame. “Apparently we’re not so different from the aliens after all.”

“This is not some  _Twilight Zone_  episode,” she snaps, but it lacks bite. She stares pensively down at the little whatever-the-hell. “All right, fine. But I’m taking a hair sample!”

“So long as you don’t try to clone it, I’m good.”

When she sets the thing back down, it lets out another trill that Grant’s gotta admit sounds forlorn. It shuffles? Rolls? Grant’s not really sure how to describe the movement of a totally limbless, shapeless creature, but whatever it does, it might be trying to get back into Simmons’ hands when she clips a patch of fur. The sample goes into a baggie and the baggie to Ward. Because, as she put it the first time, “If you’re going to inflict us with your presence, you might as well be useful.” He puts it with the rest and falls into step beside her, one hand hovering at her back in case trouble presents itself.

They keep to the same path they took out here and Simmons marches resolutely ahead the whole way, obviously angry he wouldn’t let her keep her new pet.

His hand drops away as the Bus comes into view, but he keeps the space between them narrow to softly say, “I tell you what, there’s gotta be something pretty bad about this place if you-know-who sent us here. I’m guessing some sort of big, bad alien.”

“Most likely,” she agrees. Her footsteps are growing uneven. She’s eager to get back aboard to start examining her samples. And, he’s sure, to get away from him.

“If it is,” he says quickly, “I’ll kill it and you can do whatever you want with the body.”

She pauses, staring at him with an unsteady expression. Whatever resentment she still feels towards him is completely at odds with her excitement over the prospect of an alien corpse to call her own.

He grins. “Don’t thank me yet,” he says, putting her out of the agony of deciding whether or not she should, “you still don’t have it.” He motions her towards the Bus and she hurries ahead.

It’s a stupid promise, but it’s more than worth it to see the others’ reactions when Simmons willingly sits next to him around the campfire later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find a smutty follow-up to this drabble [over here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5153591).


	18. some enchanted evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by an AU prompt in a collection on tumblr: _You’re a hunter and my roommate totally isn’t a werewolf. Let me take you on a date to prove it. No really, my roommate isn’t a werewolf._

The date is actually going pretty well. Which is good, since Grant had to promise Trip a classic monster movie marathon in exchange for distracting Coulson. For that kind of pain and suffering, Jemma Simmons had better be worth it. But it’s looking like she might be.

She was waiting on the bench outside Sorrento’s exactly at eight, she’s got wits to match her smarts, her skirt proved that her legs were just as amazing as he‘d hoped, and she’s already eaten three pieces of garlic bread.

“Sorry,” she says around the first bite of her fourth. She’s using it to mop up what remains of her spaghetti sauce. “It’s just so good.”

“No, it’s fine.” He’s already had his fill and it’s a weight off his mind besides. He didn’t actually suspect her of being a vampire, but he did bring her to an Italian restaurant for a reason. (After that mess Morse got into, it’s kind of become SOP to test potential romantic partners with garlic bread.) 

She blushes and stuffs the last piece into her mouth. It’s only knowing that she’d take it wrong that stops him from laughing. She’s a breath of fresh air, a far cry from the stuffed shirts he deals with back at HQ. Of course, if Trip were here, he’d be only too happy to remind Grant that  _he_  is one of those stuffed shirts, possibly the stuffiest, most over-starched shirt of them all. Which is just not even a little true. Grant can have fun - and fun that doesn’t involve violence too! Exhibit A: this date.

“So where were we?” he asks as they get up to go. He helps her into her jacket and his fingers brush the skin exposed by her wide collar. If he’s not mistaken, she blushes again. He’s really enjoying seeing all the ways he can get color to rise in her cheeks. “We finished education - which left me feeling completely inadequate.”

“It goes both ways, I’ll have you know. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find someone who can keep my interest?” She flips up her collar as they step outside into the cold air. There’s supposed to be a storm moving in this weekend and a full moon on top of that. Grant’s gonna be busy.

“Should I take that as a compliment?” he asks as he offers her his arm. It’s not the full moon yet and he’s got the night off, which means he can see Jemma safely home and pretend, at least for a little while, that he’s not watching the shadows for demons. (But he is. He’s feeling romantic, not stupid.)

She tucks her hand into his arm and leans slightly into him as they walk. “Oh, most definitely.”

“So, that’s school. We did work.” Which he lied about. A lot. Sure, technically he does security-ish work, but the mental picture she’s got is probably worlds away from his actual job of hunting down supernatural menaces to society. 

“Friends, I guess?” she asks.

“I told you about Trip.” That gets her smiling. While the story about Trip and the giant tub of pudding had to be severely edited for civilian consumption, it was still pretty darn funny. “It’s mostly just work friends. They keep me pretty busy at the office. Oh, and Buddy. My dog.” He holds up his doggy bag with its side of three meatballs. “He’s who this is for.”

“I had wondered.”

“What about you?” He doesn’t want to ask, but it’s the natural progression of the conversation and his normal guy cover demands he follow it. Jemma’s passed every subtle test he’s thrown her way over the course of the evening. She’s not a vampire, werewolf, succubus, lorelei, or kitsune. She’s not possessed by any force, malignant or benign. But he  _did_  meet her while staking out her apartment building as the potential hideout of an omega werewolf that’s been roaming the city, so while her answer might be exactly what he needs to hear to crack this case, he kind of doesn’t want to ruin the date by bringing work into it - even though Jemma will never know. (Hopefully. There’s always the chance this’ll go like Coulson’s last girlfriend. The guy had to decapitate her incubus stalker in front of her. That kind of killed the relationship.)

She shrugs, going a little stiff at his side. “The same, I guess. Work keeps me busy and …” He can guess where this is going. If it’s difficult for her to form romantic attachments, it’s not surprising that she has trouble forming friendships too. He searches for something to distract her, but before he can think of anything, she blurts out, “Fitz isn’t a monster!”

He stops. Or she does. Either way they end up staring at each other just outside the pool of light from a nearby streetlamp. She’s still got her hand on his arm, but just barely. 

“Huh?” he asks. He has no idea where her roommate came into all of this.

She takes in a deep breath. “I came on this date with the intention of somehow subtly throwing you off Fitz’s trail. Which I now realize was completely foolish and probably more due to me finding you attractive than any real likelihood of it working, but please don’t take him away! He’s not a menace to society! He doesn’t crave the flesh of the living or have a lack of respect for human life! In fact, he has more respect than most people. That’s probably because of the whole being dead thing, I imagine.”

“Whoa, hold on.” He puts his hands on her shoulders and bends down to look her in the eye. Even in those heels, she’s still so much shorter than him. “Fitz is  _dead_?”

“Undead, I think is the proper term.” Grant’s brain is already putting together that she probably loves garlic bread so much because she can’t have any at home, when she says, “I reanimated him,” and blows that theory out of the water.

“You,” Grant echoes slowly, “reanimated him?” Even as someone with up close and personal knowledge that the supernatural is real, Grant’s a little confused. He spent twenty minutes talking to Fitz while their neighbor, Skye, did Jemma’s hair. Not to mention the conversation Grant had with him this morning. And not once did Grant’s monster radar bleep.

Jemma’s explaining - something about Fitz drowning and her going “maybe a  _teensy_  bit crazy” - but Grant’s only half listening. Despite what the Agency would have the world believe, reanimated corpses aren’t an impossibility. They’re rare, sure, but Grant’s met them before. Fought them, is more accurate. They’re not good for much more than muscle. The really smart ones can barely string together a sentence, but Fitz had no trouble holding his half of a conversation. (And nearly succeeded in his intention of running logical circles around Grant.)

Jemma finishes her story with a plaintive “Please don’t kill him!” 

“Not much chance of  _that_ ,” Grant says, still more than a little in awe. “We might want to study him - or your notes.” There’s no might about it, HQ will  _definitely_  want to hear about this. 

“You can have them!” she says readily. “The notes. Whether Fitz wants to submit to your scientists is up to him.”

His superiors might disagree with that, but Grant’s not about to (not with the hope of a goodnight kiss still dangling out there. She  _did_  say she found him attractive). He puts his arm around her shoulders and steers them towards her building. “Fine with me, but we should get moving. You might not want to hear this, but I wasn’t at your building looking for Fitz. There’s a werewolf in the neighborhood and even though it’s not the full moon, it’s close enough that it’s likely to be on the prowl.”

“Oh no, Skye’s staying in tonight so she can interrogate me about our date.” Jemma slaps a hand over her mouth, horror widening her eyes comically.

Grant should probably be worried about losing his touch, but he’s having a little too much trouble holding back his laughter. (And maybe he should be more worried about how completely this very non-supernatural woman has managed to enchant him in only one night.)


	19. “I do believe that woman’s planning to shoot me again.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “I do believe that woman’s planning to shoot me again.”
> 
> Jemma's been kidnapped by Grant, Kara, and Bakshi.

Jemma is in Trouble. That’s right, capital T. She thought she was meeting Weaver at a neutral location - a coffee shop - to discuss terms for a potential cease-fire between the two SHIELD factions. What she got was a Weaver who sounded distressingly like May and a dendrotoxin round to the chest. Now she’s woken up, tied to a chair in a magazine perfect room - a hotel room, she’s guessing. It was actually kind of nice with the big windows and the view of the city, up until her captors walked in.

“Not too tight?” Ward asks. He’s currently squatted down in front of her, testing the ropes holding her in place. “I tried to find something less likely to chafe.”

“You’re too kind,” Jemma says, her voice positively dripping acid. Ward smiles like he’s proud of her cheek and moves down to the knots securing her ankles. Rather than look at the top of his traitorous head, she looks to the room’s other occupants. 

Bakshi and Agent 33 are standing against the far wall. Bakshi’s barely paying attention to what’s going on, his gaze fixed directly ahead of him in a way that strikes her as broken. Agent 33, in contrast, is glaring at Jemma. Or Jemma thinks she is. It’s difficult to tell with the scarring. 

“I do believe that woman’s planning to shoot me again.”

Ward lets out a low breath that can barely be categorized as a real laugh. “It was an ICER.”

“I think she might rather it hadn’t been.”

He comes up, tightening the distance between them instead of lengthening it so that when he whispers in her ear, she can feel his body heat like a blanket over her. “She’s jealous you’re getting all my attention.” It has been a very long time since any man spoke low, seductive words into her ear, and the very real danger implicit in Ward’s doesn’t stop a wanting heat from pooling in her belly.

“I don’t want your _attention_ ,” she says as he pulls away. His self-satisfied smile tells her she should probably stick to less dangerous waters. She nods to the others. “What is this about? Why did you break Bakshi out? Are you working for HYDRA again?” She’s well aware there’s a price on her head. If Ward wants back in with HYDRA after the mess in Puerto Rico, handing her over is a good way to do it.

Agent 33 rolls her eyes. Bakshi winces slightly, but his expression smoothes out again quickly. He doesn’t even look her way.

“No, Simmons,” Ward says like she’s being slow. “We are not selling you to the highest bidder. We’re helping you.”

Now she laughs. She’s been shot, kidnapped, and tied to a chair - and that’s not even including the part where  _Grant Ward_  is breathing the same air as her. There is nothing about this situation that can be described as helpful.

Ward’s still got that pandering look on his face, but it’s 33 who catches Jemma’s attention. The anger she’s been directing at Jemma has faded, replaced by something that looks like pity. Jemma has no idea what that means and, frankly, has no desire to.

“The others will be looking for me,” she says, grasping desperately for any straw that will get her out of this mess before the other shoe drops. “It won’t take them long-”

“What do you think Bakshi and I were doing while Kara was grabbing you?” Ward asks. At mention of his name, Bakshi looks to Ward.

Jemma’s heart twists. Hunter and May were meant to be watching for trouble while she went into the meeting, she can only guess what sort of state Ward’s left them in.

“But,” Ward says, “now that you bring it up, we should probably get this show on the road in case they manage to track us down.”

Agent 33 bristles at that. “We made it away clean.”

Ward doesn’t even turn to look at her when he answers, directing the hint of pride in his voice Jemma‘s way. “Never underestimate Coulson’s team.” He squats down in front of her again, his hands gripping the bars holding the arms of her chair in place. “I wasn’t sure, after I got Skye to her father, who to help next. I hadn’t promised any of you anything and none of you needed anyone killed.” It’s a joke. He’s actually trying to make a joke about being a murderer. More than anything up to now, that tells her just how much danger she’s in. “But then Kara found me bleeding out, and she told me that Whitehall was gone. Without him, she didn’t know what to do, who to be. And I knew what to do next.”

He’s like a snake and she’s caught in his gaze, too terrified of what will happen next to look away. She curls her fingers into her palms, pulling away from him in the only way she can.

“I helped her as best I could, and she kept me alive.” The fondness in his voice while he talked about Agent 33 disappears, replaced by that same smugness he’s exuded ever since his true loyalties were revealed. “Together we got Bakshi out of federal custody. I couldn’t’ve picked a nicer guy to test it on.” Again, Bakshi’s attention snaps to Ward at the mention of his name. Something cold and terrible wells within Jemma.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asks. There’s a hot sharpness in her eyes, but her voice is strong. She can be proud of that.

Ward tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, his touch gentle. “I’m not going to brainwash you,” he says, confirming her suspicions. She can’t say she ever liked Bakshi, but that doesn’t mean she wanted his free will stripped from him.

“Then why am I here?”

“Like I said, I’m trying to help you. You remember when I got knocked into that ravine in Canada?” The sudden shift in topic gives her whiplash, but Ward is ready to fill in the gaps for her. “You had to stitch me up after.” He taps his shoulder and she remembers. Mostly it was small scrapes that needed nothing more than a bit of disinfectant, but the cut on his shoulder had been a ragged mess. “You had to cut into it so you could stitch it up cleanly. You had to make it  _worse_  before you could make it _better_.”

That cold fear inside her grows as Ward shifts his weight forward, straightening his back so they’re on the same level.

“I’m sorry, Simmons,” he says so sincerely that she almost believes him. If he was really sorry, he wouldn’t say what he does next. “Comply and you will be rewarded.” 

 _No_. From the first word, she’s rebelling, struggling against the ropes. She throws her weight but Ward anchors the chair in place. 

She hasn’t been brainwashed. 

She’s not some mindless HYDRA drone. 

She made it out safe and whole and completely herself.

(So why is she fighting so hard?)

“Compliance is necessary.”

Why  _is_  she fighting so hard? If she hasn’t been brainwashed, there’s nothing Ward’s words can do to hurt her. She should just let him finish his little mantra and then laugh in his face. But the truth is, she knows. She’s known for months now but has been too afraid to voice the truth aloud, like a child who thinks saying the boogeyman’s name in the mirror will make him real.

She screws her eyes shut. It’s a mistake. Now all she has is Ward’s voice, calm and steady, and the simplicity of his request. She remembers a room, dark save for a burning light right in front of her, and another voice, colder than Ward’s, and there was pain. So much pain. 

Ward can make it go away. Didn’t he tell her months and months ago that all she had to do was follow his orders, no matter the situation, and he would ensure she made it out? She’s safe with him, so long as she does what she’s supposed to.

“You want to comply.”

Yes. She does.

She’s already let go, already stopped fighting, and it’s so  _easy_ , so simple. It’s like breathing.

When she opens her eyes, Ward is smiling at her a little sadly. Has she done something wrong?

“How do you feel, Simmons?”

For a moment she gets that sick feeling she used to when she didn’t readily know the answer on a test, but it comes to her and she smiles at the joke in it. “Happy to comply,” she says cheerily.

Ward cuts the ropes holding her and gives her a hand to help her up. He doesn’t let go when she’s on her feet. She’s grateful. Her hands are slightly numb from her struggling and he’s warm. His thumb trails over her knuckles and she’s keenly aware of the raw power behind the gentle touch. The tremulous shaft of desire she feels now is more distinct than what she felt earlier when he … He didn’t threaten her, though she thought he was doing so at the time. She was so foolish and is grateful that he’s helped her see reason.

“We’ll fix that,” he says. She’s not sure what he means, but she knows he’ll take care of her. All she has to do is comply.


	20. “You always wear such nice suits.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “You always wear such nice suits.”
> 
> Grant's back on the team, and he is absolutely getting in trouble for how badly this mission's gone.

Grant is in so much trouble. It’s not his fault that the mark realized the woman in the painted on miniskirt at the bar was a SHIELD agent. It’s not his fault that the mark proceeded to drug her drink. It’s not his fault that the mark’s hotel room went up in flames. (Okay, that one is maybe a little his fault.) 

“You’re pretty,” Simmons says. Her voice is thick from the drugs and alcohol and possibly a little from the smoke. He made sure she was clear before starting the fire, but smoke has a tendency to travel.

“You’ve been drugged, Simmons,” he says. It’s two a.m. and he’s carrying her down a deserted street because the bastard mark’s body guard knocked his comm out during their fight. The jump jet’s barely a mile away but he’s sure Hunter is planning all sorts of ways to kill him once they get there.

Simmons trails a finger down the side of his face, pouting. “You got in a fight.”

“Saving your ass. Maybe try to remember that when Hunter starts shooting at me, okay?” He hisses in a breath when her nail scrapes a rope burn he got when the body guard tried to choke him.

“But you’re still so pretty,” she says, completely ignoring him. “How can you get into so many fights and still be so pretty?” She pushes against his shoulder, stretching out her back and legs so he barely manages to keep his hold on her. “How can you be so  _evil_  and still be so  _pretty_?”

“I’m not evil.” He figures he might as well defend himself while he can. If she was sober, she’d be yelling him down. “Would someone evil have saved you from that asshole?”

She relaxes in his arms and starts fiddling with the open collar of his shirt. “You always wear such nice suits.”

He sighs. If she can hear him at all, it’s obviously not making a dent through the haze. Only a few more blocks and he can dump her on Hunter. Taking care of her (and throwing Grant murderous looks) will take up enough of Hunter’s time that he might not even  report what’s happened until they’re back at base. Grant can only hope. The less time Coulson has to think up ways to punish him for what is, again,  _not his fault_ , the better.

He’s so busy planning for the coming threats that he doesn’t notice the one in his arms until her fingers brush over his nipple. He stops dead, the light of a streetlamp shining down on his back so just what Simmons is doing - and yeah, she’s  _still doing it_  - is hidden to anyone watching.

“Simmons?” Ward asks, not sure why he’s even trying, but this time he gets a response. It’s just a light, questioning hum, but it’s something. “What are you doing?”

“You feel good,” she says. He definitely should have realized earlier that this tone in her voice isn’t from the smoke. Her hand slides up to grip his shoulder so she can pull herself tight against him as she curls into his neck. “Why do you have to be so bad?” she asks, her breath warm on his skin.

“ _Simmons_.” 

She’s not squirming in his arms exactly, it’s more focused than that, like she’s got an itch that only he can scratch. 

He’s not the kind of guy who can’t control himself around a horny woman. There was a whole class at the Academy for repressing base urges to get the job done and he’s proud to say he aced it. But this particular woman is already in his arms and he did use a good portion of his skills earlier just getting over her legs. (And Simmons has  _legs_ , why did no one warn him?) He needs a few seconds to get himself under control.

Only Simmons doesn’t give him a few seconds. She follows up her statement by kissing the burn she irritated earlier. Gentle, soothing kisses that are absolutely chaste. They shouldn’t turn him on more than everything else she‘s done so far, but they do. He catches her mouth with his. She wraps her arms around the back of his head, deepening the kiss.

Her breasts, already on display courtesy of Skye’s help with wardrobe, press into his chest. Her legs tighten around his arm as he pulls her closer. He knows if he drops them, this won’t stop. There’s an alley only a few feet away, no signs of life. He can give those breasts the attention they deserve. She’ll wrap her legs around his waist, hold him to her as he presses her hard against the brick wall. He can almost hear the noises she’d make.

 _“I’m gonna make you scream that pretty little throat of yours raw - but later. How about now I make you scream in the fun way, huh?”_  That’s what the bastard they came here to find was saying when Grant finally reached the hotel room. Immolation was too good for the guy, but it was the best slow, agonizing death Grant could manage under the circumstances.

He turns away from Simmons, who whines and nuzzles his throat. He’s not that guy. He’s not evil.

He starts walking again, faster this time. Simmons’ head lolls on his shoulder and he might think she’s fallen asleep if her hand wasn’t still trailing nonsense patterns under his shirt. (Though, knowing Simmons, it’s entirely possible that she’s writing out complex formulas in her delirium.)

Let Hunter call Grant every dirty name in the book. Let Coulson give him inventory duty with the Koenigs until the end of time. All that he can handle. He deserves it; he should’ve listened to his instincts and kept closer to Simmons instead of giving her space like Coulson ordered. He saved her from the bad guy but he didn’t keep her safe. The state she’s in now, it’s on him - and not in the good way. At the very least he owes it to her to keep her safe from himself.


	21. “You lied to me! I’m impressed.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “You lied to me! I’m impressed.”
> 
> Dating inside HYDRA is ... complicated. But Grant's got it covered.

Grant catches her hand before she can do more than stand up. “Come back to my place.” Jemma lifts her feet like she’s trying to pull away, but her arm is slack in his grip.

“It’s Sunday night.”

“Actually, it’s Monday morning.” He doesn’t even bother to check his watch, it’s been Monday for well over an hour now. She laughs and comes back to him. The park bench is cold beneath him but her thighs are warm where they brush against his knees. She presses a kiss to his forehead.

“I have work in the morning.”

He shrugs. “So do I.”

“With the organization that routinely murders its own employees when they get out of line.”

“That barely ever happens. And only when someone seriously screws up.” Or, technically, when someone just gets fed up. That’s how they met, in a roudabout sort of way. He cut off one of the heads - and maintains it was a good move for HYDRA in the long run because now two actually competent heads can sprout from the waste of space that was Lorenzo - and was punished with guard duty in the labs. If he’d known killing that pain in the ass would get him Jemma, he’d have offed him a whole lot sooner.

She’s still kissing him, following the line of his jaw. He growls, too eager to wait, and grabs the back of her head to pull her into a real kiss. She giggles into his mouth and easily maneuvers herself into his lap. 

“I still have work in the morning,” she says when he starts moving down. The collar of her dress has been driving him crazy all night. He nips at the exposed curve of her breast, showing her just what he thinks of her tired argument. “What I  _mean_ ,” she says, her hand digging into his hair to hold him right there, “is that I can’t go to work in this dress. So we’ll have to go to my place.”

When he looks up at her, the column of her neck is pale in the moonlight. Her face is lifted to the stars but her eyes are shut, her focus all on him. It takes her a few seconds to tilt her head back down and he grins at the hazy look in her eyes. She’s one of HYDRA’s smartest and he gets no small amount of enjoyment from rendering her senseless.

“We wouldn’t have to go back to your place if you just kept some things at my place.” It’s an old argument and he knows before he says it what her answer will be.

She pushes off his lap but this time she’s the one to catch his hand, pulling him along after her. “I suppose after that,” Jemma says as they head for the park’s edge, “you’ll be telling me to move in my books. And my treadmill. And my-”

He never knows what will come after the treadmill, because he never lets her get that far. “My treadmill’s better than yours.”

“It is not!” She actually hits him, just an open-palmed slap to his chest that wouldn’t hurt a fly, but it’s telling of how comfortable she is around him that she’d even dare. “Mine is less than a year old! Yours, you stole from the wreckage of the Hub. It still smells like smoke.”

“Mine has character. Character trumps newness.”

“And function, I imagine? Since yours is prone to breaking down before I’ve made it three miles.”

“Character trumps  _everything_.”

She slows down to walk backwards and grips his hand between hers. Her fingers are cold.

“What’s wrong?” Grant asks. He reaches for her with his free hand but she only hurries ahead, trusting him to tell her if she’s about to trip over something.

“Nothing,” she says. “Sometimes I just wonder if you might be right.”

She turns away, running for the car and still pulling him behind her. He’s one of the most dangerous men in one of the most dangerous organizations in the world, and he trails after her like a dog on a leash. Last week someone made the comparison within his hearing and added the question of just what Jemma might be hiding under those skirts to keep Grant’s attention. 

If he’d just insulted Grant, the man would be dead, but he had to go and drag Jemma into it; the reminder of her smiling face was enough to squelch his murderous urges. The man’ll have a lot more opportunity to see just how valuable Jemma is with his new role down in the labs. He’s not there as a guard though, his title within HYDRA’s framework has changed from specialist to test subject. 

Grant drives the short distance to her apartment. She toes off her heels and hums out of tune with the dreamy songs coming over the radio at this time of night. 

He’s hoping he just won a victory with her. Sometimes, like now, she’s so at ease with him. He can see her relax and just be herself, be the smiling woman he saw that first day in the labs. But sometimes he knows she cuts herself off. She tries to hide it, but he’d have to be blind not to see. And he’d have to be an idiot not to know why.

Jemma’s nice. She smiles at strangers and treats terrifying specialists she’s just met like they’re already her friends.

Grant is not nice. At all. He kills people for a living and is not adverse to knocking off anyone who rubs him the wrong way.

Sure, Jemma can’t be all sunshine and kittens if she’s working for HYDRA. He loves seeing her go to work on a corpse, the way she delights over a laceration or a burst kidney. And the things they’ll be doing in a few minutes aren’t exactly tame. But if he pushes her, he’ll only remind her just how dangerous he is and he won’t risk scaring her off. 

Eventually she’ll accept all of him, but there’s plenty of time for that. 

When he pulls up in front of her building, she climbs out before he can run around to open her door. She leans against the car, her shoes dangling from her hand.

“Tired?” he asks. She’s looking at him like she’s not sure she really wants to go up.

She only shakes her head and grabs his tie to pull him to her. She kisses him slow, savoring the moment. He’d be more than happy to oblige her if they weren’t on a very public street in the wee hours of the morning.

“Inside,” he says gruffly, breaking the kiss. She nods and lets him pull her keys from her purse.

It takes them a while to reach her door. She keeps distracting him. He swears they must spend a full ten minutes in the elevator before he realizes the reason they’re not moving is that they’re already on her floor. That’s when he hitches her thighs over his hips and carries her the rest of the way.

He knows her apartment like the back of his hand. The entryway, the bowl where he drops her keys, the path through the kitchen to the bedroom. But they don’t make it that far. He has just enough time to sense there’s another person there, to turn them around so his back’s to the threat and Jemma’s shielded in his arms. There’s a flash of blue that lights up her beautiful face and that’s the last thing Grant knows for a long time.

* * *

It’s smart. He’s too high-up in HYDRA’s power structure for them to just abandon everything he knows about when he’s taken. He’s also been loyal for over a decade and they have no reason to assume he’s going to talk. Which is exactly what makes this smart plan the most idiotic one Grant’s ever heard. He’s not going to talk.

He spends nearly a week watching Morse (who didn’t intimidate him even _before_ she went blonde and joined the good guy brigade) grow increasingly frustrated with his total lack of response to her questions. Her frustration makes his own more manageable. It’s been days with no mention of Jemma. He has no way of knowing if they took her or left her or killed her. If it’s the last one, he’s going to kill them all. He’ll kill them all regardless, but if they’ve taken Jemma from him, he’s gonna take his time about it.

All he’s waiting for, is for Morse to get sloppy. Once she moves on to torturing him - with something other than her voice, he means - he’ll have ample opportunity to break out. Moving him, even just dropping the barrier and letting people inside to do the dirty work, will give him the advantage he needs.

She’s nearly there too, he could see it last time she was down here, so when he’s woken up in the middle of the night, his first thought is that it’s beginning. Only no rough hands pull him out of bed. No angry voice orders him to his feet. He waits for ten full beats before sitting up and looking around for whatever dragged him from his sleep.

It’s been almost exactly six days since the last time he saw Jemma. When he allowed himself to think about the possibility of seeing her again, it was never with her standing outside his cell, no guard in sight, in pajamas that seem to drown her. No, he realizes, not pajamas. The pants are - they’re that flannel kind she likes - but the shirt is his. It’s the button down he was wearing that night.

He doesn’t realize he’s moved until she’s taking a step back. He stops with his toes nearly touching the bright yellow line in the floor. 

She’s gripping the tablet Morse uses to control the barrier. Her knuckles are white and her hands shake. Her throat works but she can’t seem to settle on what to say, so he says it for her. “You  _lied to me_.”

Her eyes fly to his face, wide and almost fearful. He’s never wanted her fear, so he lets his real feelings show with a smile.

“I’m impressed,” he says honestly. “So you were always SHIELD? You were the mole and Morse was watching your back.” He’s not really asking, he just wants to see if she’ll confirm it.

“I- yes. But that’s not why I’m here.” She’s flustered. He always did like making her flustered. 

“You’re not here at two in the morning in your pajamas to talk about your espionage record?”

She ignores his question, her expression going hard. “They’re going to torture you.” Her voice cracks a little on the word and her eyes are bright. “Tomorrow. Coulson’s trying to hide it from me, but there’s really no way I’m not going to notice a sizeable portion of my department being moved to a _torture chamber_.”

There’s a lot to take in there. Oh, she could be lying, and he absolutely doesn’t trust her after what she’s pulled, but there’s no reason to lie about being in charge of her own department (SHIELD must really have been desperate to send her into the field) or the fact that they’ll be taking him to another location. Or, most importantly, that Coulson is trying to hide Grant’s impending torture from her. 

The Jemma who shied away from acts of violence was real then, but that means so is the Jemma who enjoyed studying the aftereffects. His odd little contradiction. Who Coulson doesn’t trust. Probably he thought she’d do exactly this if she knew. Grant can work with that, but he needs to know what she’s doing here first.

“So you’re here to break me out?” he asks. Her grip on the tablet loosens purposefully. No, then. It was worth a shot.

“You have to give them what they want.” When he starts shaking his head, she rushes forward, barely pulling her hand back before it can strike the barrier. She’s silent a moment, staring at the offending hand, but his focus is on her feet. Her brief run shifted the hems of her pants so he can see her toes peeking out. And she says he needs to take better care of himself. 

“You should really stop going barefoot so often, you’ll catch a cold down here.”

Her face goes oddly blank and a moment later she taps a few keys on the tablet. Warm air starts pumping in through the vents. It hasn’t broken sixty since Grant got here. Apparently the torture already started.

“Grant, you have to,” she says. “They’ll hurt you.”

“I know.” He’s no stranger to pain. He’s not afraid of it. He was more than willing to endure some of it for the chance to get out of here, but that plan’s just changed. “I won’t tell them anything.”

Her face falls, and for a brief moment she looks like she really might cry.

“But I will tell you.”

She sucks in a breath, shocked. “But…”

“I don’t care about HYDRA. I was only holding back what I know because like hell was I going to help the people who attacked us in your own-” He cuts off his angry words deliberately, letting his eyes drift towards the camera embedded in the wall over her shoulder. “Who locked me up.” He turns his back on it and her.

“Then why?” she asks.

He sits on the edge of his bed, fingers steepled between his knees. “Because you’re working for them. I don’t care what happens to HYDRA or SHIELD, but I do care what happens to you.” He lets that sink in a moment, watches the emotions play over her face. She’s making this too easy. “So?” he asks, nodding to the chair behind her. She takes it, awe plain in her expression, and he starts in from the beginning, going through each and every question Morse has asked over the last few days.

When it’s reaches the time he’d usually be waking up, he moves to the floor for his workout. She’s relaxed by now. She’s got her knees curled up to her chest and her toes are gripping the edge of the metal seat. He actually has her laughing when the barrier abruptly reappears, cutting them off. He plays up his worry and disappointment for the cameras he knows are still watching, but really he’s relieved. What kind of an operation are they running up there that Jemma’s been down here for hours with no one the wiser?

A piss poor one, obviously, and that means Coulson’s gonna have no choice but to abandon Morse for Jemma. He’ll send her back to Grant time and time again. And that’s all Grant needs: time with her. Eventually, she  _is_  going to let him out of here, and when she does, he’ll still follow through on his plans to tear SHIELD to the ground. Only he won’t kill all of them. He’ll be keeping one of its leaders for himself afterward.


	22. "I'm sorry. That was mean."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I'm sorry. That was mean."
> 
> Grant'd be a whole lot happier about making it safely away from the Hub if his non-HYDRA wife wasn't along for the ride.

It’s almost too easy to convince Coulson to let him leave in the midst of the HYDRA crisis. Hand too. She’s “only too happy to have him,” but then,  _of course_ , she has to go and screw it all up. “But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like both Wards. We don’t know what kind of state the Fridge is in and I’d like a scientist I can trust at my side.”

“I’m sure Grant won’t mind that,” Coulson says. His smile is a little worn, what with the world currently falling apart around him, but it’s genuine. Grant does his best to make his look the same.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to keep Jemma close - she’s his  _wife_ , he’d keep her in his eyesight at all times if she’d allow it - but taking Jemma along on this particular mission is not gonna go well. And Grant is proven absolutely right when Hand drops Jemma off before heading up to the cockpit. 

Garrett almost doesn’t even bother to hide the look he throws Grant, which is definitely not helping Jemma’s mood. She’s tense and hugging herself tight, giving Garrett a wide berth. Grant stands to catch her and helps buckle her in. 

He knows she doesn’t like flying on the smaller planes since her fall, which means there’s no way he can move her to the cockpit while he takes care of matters here. If Garrett decides to make his move early, if Grant’s hand is forced, he’ll have to murder three SHIELD agents while his wife looks on. 

This is exactly why he wanted to pick her up  _later,_  after things had settled down. He is definitely going to make Hand pay for this.

“You doing okay?” he asks softly, ducking his head close to Jemma’s. She shifts closer into his arms and nuzzles him gently. They haven’t had much time to reconnect since everything happened. He had to volunteer to help transport Garrett and after spending the last sixteen hours worried she might be dead, he was pretty sure if he let himself have any alone time with her it’d last  _another_ sixteen hours, Garrett be damned. “Jem?” Grant presses, tilting her chin to make her look at him.

“I’m fine,” she says, trying to laugh it off. He can hear the sharp edge in the sound though, and doesn’t let up his concerned stare. “Really. I just- It was all a bit much.”

“It’s not over yet.” It’s the most warning he can give her without tipping his hand, but he’s gotta give her  _something_. He owes her that much.

Her eyes drift over to Garrett, and again he wants to wring Hand’s neck for her little stunt. There’s no reason Jemma should be here. She should be at the nice, secure Hub, far away from the man who’s nearly killed two members of their team - and that’s just the targeted attacks.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, her voice going hard as she shifts to face front. It’s not the same as _being_ fine, but he never believed her earlier answer anyway.

The glare he sends Garrett’s way isn’t a put on. Does he absolutely  _have_ to keep leering at them? At least he’s keeping his mouth shut. By now Grant would’ve expected a whole treatise on how Garrett “always knew” Jemma would make Grant soft. Which, for the record, she  _hasn’t_. If anything, he’s even more determined now that he has someone to protect.

He keeps his arm around Jemma’s shoulders. She’s grips his hand in his lap as they take off, and he’s still so damn happy she’s alive, he doesn’t bother asking her to try not breaking his fingers. She’s still holding onto him - more gently now - when Hand walks back in.

Hand throws Garrett a dismissive look. “All right, we’re out of the Hub’s range, can we get those off him now?”

Grant always knew Garrett had help from another of SHIELD’s higher-ups, but he can’t much care right now that it’s Hand. (Although this does make his plans to kill her a whole lot harder to follow through on.) He knows Jemma can feel him tense and hopes she thinks it’s because he’s just as betrayed as she is. He wants every second he can get before she starts hating him.

Hand falls into a seat on their side, throwing one leg casually over the other. “Hail HYDRA,” she says dryly. Garrett is even less helpful, asking one of the guards if he’s got a cell phone of all things. Grant braces himself to face his wife.

Sure enough, she’s looking at him like he’s a stranger and his heart plummets. He can fix this. He  _will_ fix this. He always knew this day would come and he’s got plans to turn her around. He’s just gotta make it through this horrible bit first.

He just hopes she doesn’t cry.

“Jemma,” he says.

“You’re HYDRA too?” she asks. His brain grinds to a halt, all his carefully thought-out plans hovering at the edges like dogs whose rabbit dinner just disappeared into thin air.

A click and a flash snap him out of it. Garrett’s grinning like a loon with the borrowed cell phone aimed at them. “I’m sorry,” he says, completely unapologetic, “that was mean, but I’ve been waiting  _years_  for this moment. I wanna remember it.”

“Send me a copy of that, will you?” Hand asks.

Before Grant can decide just how much of his anger he wants to unleash on Garrett at this particular moment (because there will definitely be future moments), Jemma is angling around him to yell shrilly at Hand. “You knew he was HYDRA?!”

Hand shrugs, just as unapologetic as Garrett. “Didn’t you ever wonder why we never asked you to turn him?” 

Garrett makes a gesture to Grant that seems to indicate the same. And Grant  _had_  wondered, but he’d always figured it was just because Garrett didn’t care. He was never a big fan of Grant’s marriage to begin with. He likes Jemma just fine - which suddenly makes a whole lot more sense - but he really does have a whole scripted rant about how Grant’s letting himself get soft.

“Oh, this is such a relief,” Jemma says. Her hand still hasn’t left his, and she squeezes warmly now. “I was so worried you were going to hate me.” 

“ _You_  were worried? I thought you were gonna accuse me of kidnapping you!” Which, yeah, there was a plan to do that eventually if he had to, but this right here is all Hand’s fault.

Jemma laughs and it’s probably the most wonderful thing Grant’s ever heard. This is also the most relaxed he’s seen her on a plane that wasn’t the Bus in months and he plans on taking full advantage. He unbuckles her and drags her for the door.

“Where are we going?” she asks, still laughing.

Garrett, the bastard, answers before Grant can. “Have safe sex!”

“They’re never going to let us live this down, are they?” Jemma asks softly once they’re safely out of earshot.

“Want me to kill them?” He’s only mostly joking. Jemma laughs, delighted, and wraps her arms around his neck to pull him down for a kiss.


	23. pants on fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grant takes threats against his life _very_ seriously.

At this point Grant’s 90% sure he’s not getting TAHITI’d. He’s saved everybody’s lives at least once on this little adventure, Coulson would have to be crazy to let him go now. (But just in case, Kara’s already on her way to destroy the TAHITI machine.)

“All right,” Simmons says, “you know the drill. Shirt off.” Her gloves snap as she pulls them on.

When she stops next to him, he’s more than a little confused. Hunter and Skye both need medical attention. Hunter’s already being seen to by another medic (and glaring at Grant while he’s stitched up), while Skye’s waiting her turn and chatting with Fitz.

“ _Now_ ,” Simmons says. Her expression clouds. “You didn’t hurt your head did you?” She reaches for his temple and he pulls back. 

“It’s fine,” he says quickly. He has no idea what the hell she’s playing at, but decides to play along, at least for the moment. She actually winces when he takes his shirt off.

“You’ll need ice. Does it hurt to breathe?” She tries to walk around him to see his back, but he turns on the stool, following her. She frowns sternly, the same way she used to when he wouldn’t let her give him anything for the pain. “I can’t examine you unless you let me.”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “That’s what you’re planning on doing?”

She lifts her gloved hands, gestures to the first aid supplies laid out on the table next to him. It certainly  _looks_  like she’s about to patch him up, but Grant’s got a hard time believing it.

“What happened to killing me if you ever saw me again?”

Simmons blinks once, taken aback, and then her mouth curves into a gleeful smile. “You believed me? _Really?_ ”

“Well, yeah. You seemed pretty serious-”

“Skye!” Simmons leans across the next table. “Ward believed me when I threatened to kill him!”

“What!” Skye exclaims, excited. “Awesome! Air five!” And then they actually give each other high-fives across the room. Two adult women at the heart of one of the world’s most powerful organizations (or what used to be), do an air five. Grant is beyond confused.

Simmons practically bounces back to him, still smiling to herself. She even hums while she disinfects a cut on his arm.

“Are you gonna explain that or … ?” Grant asks.

“Oh! Right!” She smiles up at him.  _Smiles_. Like he didn’t drop her out of a plane less than a year ago. She sets her supplies aside and her expression can only be described as proud. “I am learning to lie.”

For a brief moment he’s floored. Simmons -  _Jemma Simmons_  - lied to him and lied  _well_. She’s apparently been making a real effort to learn how. That part actually  _isn’t_  all that surprising. She’s a perfectionist, there’s no way she would let such a glaring flaw go for long. But in only a few months she picked up the skill well enough to fool even him.

He supposes she had to - going into HYDRA probably gave her a hell of learning curve - but it’s no less impressive.

“Good job,” he says, and means it. 

She preens under the praise. He’s really gonna have to figure out just how she feels about him now. He was expecting to put in some real work to sway her back to his side, but she seems perfectly comfortable around him. The science no doubt helps, as does the familiarity of patching him up. He’ll need to spend time with her in a different setting.

“Hey,” he whispers, ducking his head low as she works on him. She stills and her eyes dart to Hunter, who’s still glaring daggers at him. “You want to learn a few more tricks? Stuff they taught us at Ops?”

There’s a spark of desire in her eyes. She’s never gonna pass up the chance to learn something. She nods hastily.

“We’ll make time for it. Privately,” he adds, tilting his head in Hunter’s direction as he straightens.

Teaching her will also give him the chance to figure out her tells, which he’ll need to know, and time alone will help ensure her good feelings towards him  _stay_  good.

Back on the team, the TAHITI machine destroyed, and the only credible death threat neutralized - today is going better than he planned.


	24. “I think I may have stolen your dog on accident"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “I think I may have stolen your dog on accident sorry”
> 
> Life in the MCU is never dull, at least.

If you had asked Jemma twenty-four hours ago who her least favorite person in all of existence was, she would have said Grant Ward with no hesitation whatsoever. But that was twenty-four hours ago. Today, she’d be forced to say Loki, who has come back from the dead and taken it as a personal offense that Coulson is still alive. He’s also having a grand old time causing trouble for the Avengers, which is what 99% of the internet seems to be focused on at the moment.

She abandons the library terminal a full ten minutes before her time is up. She’s sent off messages to all of the others with her location -  _not_  a result of Loki’s meddling, if it can be believed. Gordon grabbed her out of the Playground and dropped her nearly halfway across the country. She thinks he might have confused her with Skye, but that’s really no cause to just  _abandon_  her. Whatever the reasons for her being here, Loki’s antics will likely distract the others for some time, leaving her on her own. 

Well, mostly on her own.

Outside, she heads for the tiny park on the other side of the parking lot. It’s not meant for much more than a scenic lunch spot, but it was the perfect place to leave her companion while she went inside to search for news on SHIELD. As she rounds the curve in the path to the shady spot she picked out earlier, her heart pounds in her chest. 

He’s not here. 

She circles the big tree twice, hoping he’s just playing some sick game with her, but no such luck. He’s gone, no sign of him left behind at all.

She sits heavily at the base of the tree. She half-expected this, to be honest. It’s not really his style to stick around, but she’d hoped, under the circumstances, that he might not leave her alone.

Not that she  _wants_  him for company, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

Her pity party’s interrupted by the sound of gravel being kicked up. She lifts her face just in time for a large dog to press in close to her. He sniffs her all over, never quite touching her until he reaches her hip. She received a nasty cut before Gordon grabbed her. It’s been bandaged, but he nuzzles it gently through the layers of gauze and clothing.

“Sorry!” a voice calls. Jemma tears her attention away from the dog to find a tall man coming down the path. She hastily climbs to her feet. “Sorry. I think I might have accidentally stolen your dog. It’s just so hot out and he looked thirsty…”

“That’s all right,” Jemma says, trying her best not to sound rattled while at the same time indicating she wants this conversation to  _end_. “He’s back now, that’s what matters.”

The man hesitates. “You should get a tag for him. And a leash, so he doesn’t run away. It’s not safe to just leave him free to run around.”

Jemma smiles down at the dog. “Yes. I should, shouldn’t I?”

The dog’s ear twitches towards her, but its focus remains fixed on the man.

“Listen, there’s a pet store just down the block. I can show you, if you want.” He’s flirting with her. It’s completely unfair because she’s kind of in the middle of a crisis and he really is very cute, but she doesn’t have the time.

“I’m sorry,” she begins, intent on letting him down easy while at the same time not arousing his suspicion. She  _is_  traveling with an untagged, unleashed dog, which she left to fend for itself while she went into the library. Not exactly normal behavior. She doesn’t get any further in her attempts though, as the apology is drowned out by a loud bark. And then several more, each more fierce and frightening than the last. The dog advances on its would-be rescuer, driving him back until he’s forced to turn and run away.

Once he’s gone, the dog sits calmly down and lets out a growl that Jemma could swear is a dark chuckle.

She crosses her arms over her chest, unamused. “Was that entirely necessary?” When she gets no response she stomps her foot. “Ward!”

He twists to face her, looking slightly cowed until he gets to his feet and trots over, pleased as punch with himself. It’s only instinct that has her scratching at his ears when he puts his head near her hand. That’s simply what one  _does_  around dogs, apparently even ones who are in fact murderers and semi-forgiven teammates cursed by alien sorcerers. (And said sorcerer had better turn him back by the time this is all done because Jemma’s not even sure where to begin with doing the job herself.)

“It looks like we’re going to be here a while,” she says. “What are the odds you’ve got a drop box nearby?”

Ward rolls his head like he can’t believe it’s even a question and starts off in the same direction the man did, leaving her no choice but to follow. She really is going to have to get him that leash after they get money from his drop box. The image brings a smile to her face. Getting turned into a dog by Loki is one thing, especially with all that was going on before they were teleported out of the Playground, but being collared like a real dog? That’s something she’s gonna get to hold over Ward’s head for a long,  _long_ time.


	25. keep your eyes straight ahead (and I'll be fine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wssummer prompt: repel
> 
> repel - drive or force (an attack or attacker) back or away.

“Oh bollocks,” Jemma gasps and jumps hastily back into the supply closet.

In her ear, Bobbi demands to know what’s happened, and whether or not she needs back-up.

“One moment please,” Jemma says sweetly and looks through the tiny crack she‘s left between door and doorpost. Yes, that is most definitely Grant Ward checking the rooms on this floor, and, if the HYDRA insignia on his shoulder is any indication, he hasn’t come alone. She reports all this to Bobbi, who curses in turn.

“Which way is he coming?” Bobbi asks.

“From the eastern stairwell,” Jemma says. That means he’ll reach Bobbi before he reaches Jemma in her closet, but it‘ll be a near thing. It wouldn’t be too bad, if only there weren’t the four unconscious children back in the room with Bobbi. This Centipede offshoot - gone independent after the uprising and the Clairvoyant’s death - has been experimenting on them.

“Tell me when he gets even with the door,” Bobbi says. “I’ll jump out and try to drive him back, then you can-”

“No,” Jemma says. Her hunt hasn’t turned up any smelling salts and without any way to wake the children, there’s no way she can get them out on her own. “Trip? Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he says. He’s meant to be on the first floor still and sounds slightly breathless. “You ladies know HYDRA’s here, right?”

“Yeah,” Bobbi says dryly, “Ward too.”

Trip curses. It seems the done thing when Ward is mentioned. 

“We found the children,” Jemma says, “but they’re unconscious. You need to get up here and help Bobbi care them out.”

“Whoa,” Bobbi says, “what about you?”

“I’ll keep Ward away from the room.”

“ _How?_ ” Bobbi demands, so loudly that Ward hears. Jemma sees him turn sharply in the direction of that particular room.

“I have a plan,” Jemma whispers. She doesn’t, actually, but she steps out into the hall all the same.

Ward brings his gun up the moment she emerges. The doors to the closet and the room are so close she could reach out and touch the gun if she wanted.

“Simmons?” Ward asks, smiling in amusement. “Does Coulson have  _any_  other scientists?”

She doesn’t bother to answer that, and he doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he doesn’t seem to mind her at all, seeing as he returns his gun to his holster. He obviously doesn’t think much of her death threat a few weeks back. She supposes it would’ve been too much to hope that fear of her would drive him off. 

Ward steps closer, holding out an arm to draw her into his reach. “Come on, Simmons. You come quietly, don’t put up a fight, Whitehall’s treatment’ll barely hurt at all.”

She suppresses a shudder at the thought of what Whitehall might have planned for her. And Ward’s estimation of the pain does not put her at ease either; he’s always been terrible about putting up with more than he should. “I don’t think I’ll be visiting Whitehall, thank you,” she says. Ward chuckles darkly. 

Over his shoulder, she catches sight of Trip. He’s obviously in some distress, and she realizes why a moment later when he lifts his ICER and begins patting his tac vest. He’s out of ammo. She can tell he’s gearing up to make a run at Ward, one that is more than likely to result in Trip very badly injured, if not dead, and those children no closer to rescue. 

She shakes her head, more for Trip’s benefit than for Ward’s, as she says, “I’d really rather not.” She takes a large step back towards the closet. If she can get him inside it somehow, out of the line of sight of the room…

Ward’s long stride easily matches the distance she’s covered and then some. “You don’t really have a choice, Simmons.” He reaches for his belt, and for a brief moment she worries he’s going for the gun again. Instead, he pulls out a pair of cuffs. “Now, are you gonna be a good girl or do I have to get rough?”

Any sexual undertones to that statement are absolutely on purpose, she’s certain, and meant to intimidate more than they’re meant seriously. But they  _do_  give her an idea. A terrible, horrible idea that will result in her being banned from field work for at least a month. Still, there are the children to consider.

He’s still moving closer, bit by bit, and so she only has to take a tiny step forward to grab the straps of his vest and pull him to her. It isn’t a pleasant kiss. It’s barely a kiss at all, really. Their teeth clang and their noses don’t quite clear one another. But it’s enough of a surprise to him that it has him stumbling into her. She nearly trips over her own feet, staying upright mostly thanks to her grip on his vest and the hand he’s already got in her hair. His other hand strikes the wall beside her head, and the next moment she’s pressed up against it as well. 

He breaks the kiss, but doesn’t give her any room to breathe as he stares at her. Her cheeks burn. This was the  _worst_  idea. 

She should say something. Anything. But he doesn’t give her the chance. He grins, sharp and predatory. His hands move to cup her face and he’s kissing her again, a real kiss this time, the kind that has her toes curling and her body arching into his. She barely has the presence of mind to pull him into the closet and then to kick the door shut behind them. It’s a good thing too, since they need the door for leverage moments later.


	26. "I'll do that for free"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Hell, I'll do that for free."
> 
> In a magical world where Jemma doesn't get eaten by an alien rock, things ... still do not go well.

Jemma’s on her knees in a line of agents, hands behind her head. It took the invaders less than thirty seconds to ID her as the highest ranking SHIELD agent on base and just under five seconds after that to realize that they can’t shoot her.  _Can’t_. That was the word the redhead used when he forcibly lowered the tattooed man’s gun. There are, apparently, standing orders that she be brought in alive. Unharmed, if at all possible.

Since then, tattoo has enjoyed frequent returns to the topic of “if at all possible.”

“I’m just saying,” he muses, “is it  _possible_  for me to contain my curiosity?” He’s sitting in one of the few undamaged desk chairs, his feet propped up against a work station. His hungry eyes haven’t left her in nearly thirty minutes.

“He wants her for himself,” redhead says, sounding tired.

Jemma can feel the discomfort and sympathy radiating off her fellow agents. They will all either die or be taken captive. She will certainly be tortured.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find out what her screams sound like, right? Our boss man knows how to share.”

There’s a scoff from over Jemma’s right shoulder and at least one agent in her sightline nods sarcastically. Tattoo doesn't seem to notice or care. His feet hit the ground with a bang and he slaps his knees as he stands. Jemma keeps her eyes fixed on the middle distance, refusing to acknowledge his predatory approach.

“Come on, sweetheart. Tell Snake what makes you so special.”

Snake?  _Snake?_  His name is Snake? She is so utterly disappointed in the cliché of it that she furrows he brow at him. His grin widens at the attention and he reaches for her chin. His fingers just barely brush her skin on their way back to his neck, where they claw at the arm currently cutting off his air supply.

“Douglas?” Ward asks calmly. The sound of his voice increases Snake’s distress, but his hands fall away from Ward’s arm. His face is turning an impressive shade of purple. 

The redhead steps smartly forward. “Sir?”

Ward’s eyes land on Jemma. “I’m gonna be a little busy for the foreseeable future. If you take over the torture and execution of our former colleague here, I’ll give you that vacation time you’ve been angling for.”

Douglas smiles. “Hell, I’d do that for free.” His smile falls. “But I’ll take the vacation all the same, sir.”

“Knew you would.” Ward carelessly twists Snake out of his hold and onto the floor at Douglas’ feet. Jemma doesn’t pay attention to what becomes of Snake and neither does Ward. He’s still looking straight at her.

His approach, while no less predatory than Snake’s, is markedly different. Snake veered from side to side like his namesake; he enjoyed the thought of her terror. Ward doesn’t seem to care either way, he just comes right on over, a wolf who doesn’t bother playing with food he’s already got cornered. He squats down, considering her carefully.

“Are you hurt?” he asks. He tips her chin up, searching for signs of injury.

She doesn’t answer.

He pulls her hands down from behind her head, and she can’t stop the way her breath catches as the blood goes rushing into them. He grins at her from the corner of his eye. “Hurts?” He puts his hands to her right shoulder. For a moment, she thinks it’s an odd angle to approach at for strangulation, but then he’s massaging feeling back into her arm. Slowly. Inch by inch. All the way down to her fingers. And then he does the other one.

She clings to the pain in her knees, using it to anchor her. He’s playing her, putting her at ease now so that later, when he begins tormenting her, it will hurt all the more. It is, frankly, an insulting play. There is no one in the world she could feel less at ease with than this man.

Though his hands, she must admit, would better suit a man who isn’t a murderer.

“Better?” he asks, still cradling her hand between his.

She keeps her eyes fixed over his shoulder, but still sees his frown. It strengthens the steel in her spine.

“You’ve changed.”

Her eyes snap to his at the reminder of their last meeting. He grins, triumphant, and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

“You used to be more talkative,” he soothes, like he’s only made a joke.

He stands, letting her hand slip from his. His eyes travel up and down the line of her agents. 

“Which one is your favorite?” he asks. 

Her blood chills. Is he going to kill her people in front of her, one by one? 

“Come on, Simmons. I’m giving you a choice here.”

Of who dies first. She refuses to make it. Ward is clearly annoyed by her continued recalcitrance. 

“I was going to let one of them take the news back to Coulson,” he sighs, “but I suppose the slowly dawning horror as they sift through the bodies will be just as good.” And then, to someone on the other side of the line-up, “Any SHIELD agents who died during the fight, bring the bodies up here. Kill the rest. I want Coulson to know I’ve got her.”

There are sobs from a few of her agents. Jemma reaches for Ward, intending to beg for their lives if she has to, but the words get caught in her throat when he pulls her roughly to her feet. Her legs are numb from kneeling for so long and nearly buckle. He catches her around the waist and easily lifts her into his arms like a child. On instinct, her arms wrap around his shoulders. 

His next words, low and frighteningly serious, stop any thoughts she might have about pushing away. “I gave you a choice,” he says. His head is bent close to hers, like they’re lovers instead of enemies surrounded by the screams of her dying people. “Next time, you should take the opportunity instead of trying to make a point.”

He adjusts his hold on her and marches out. What he said, that there will be more choices presented to her in the future, is disturbing on a number of levels, but it’s easier to focus on than the abrupt silence they leave behind. Or Douglas’ bloody salute as they pass him in the halls. Or the way Ward buckles her into her seat in the black SUV outside, like he wants to make doubly sure she arrives at their destination safely.


	27. alien artifacts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma's son has been taken.

Jemma is the first one out of the briefing room. She doesn’t know where she’s going, only that it’s away from there. 

HYDRA. They’re working with bloody  _HYDRA_. And these days HYDRA means Ward. 

She should be relieved with his offer of help. Not only does it mean a better chance of getting Anthony back, but Ward made it perfectly clear he’s in this for all the worst reasons.

“You guys get Simmons’ bouncing baby boy back from the Elders,” he said when Coulson confronted him on his motives, “and my scientists get a few new Inhumans to experiment on. Win-win.”

No one was happy with that bald statement of fact, but it was Lincoln who spoke up. “We’re not just going to let this guy take our people, are we?” he asked, eyes on Skye.

“SHIELD won’t have much choice,” Ward said dryly. “They’ll be too busy with the kid. And really, who’s more valuable:  _her_  son-” He pointed to Jemma, who cringed back at the attention. “-or the people planning on murdering him? Or, don’t tell me, the new guy’s actually so deluded he believes all that antichrist crap.”

Lincoln was noticeably silent at that. 

Jemma rests her head against the cool metal wall. Her feet have brought her to a dark corner of the plane’s cargo hold. A little time away from the endless looks of pity, where she can cry without notice, is just what the doctor ordered. 

She’s not surprised, really, at Lincoln’s attitude. Her friends may love Anthony, spoiling and protecting him in equal measure, but they grow noticeably uncomfortable when the question of his conception comes up. That part is Jemma’s fault. She hasn’t exactly given any reasonable alternatives to the popular theory.

The Inhuman Elders believe Anthony is the child of the Kree weapon. Or the embodiment of the Kree weapon. Or about a half dozen other possibilities that change daily. What _doesn’t_ change is their belief that Anthony was created to destroy them.

He’s six months old and they want him dead.

She hugs her arms tighter around herself. She feels empty, torn in two and hollowed out. If they don’t find him soon…

A hand smooths over her shoulder. It’s too broad to be May or Skye. Too strong to be Coulson. The angle is wrong for Fitz. She allows herself a sob and turns into Ward’s arms.

She must be ruining his shirt, but he doesn’t seem to mind, only tucks her head comfortably beneath his chin and goes on running his hand over her back to sooth her tears. 

It’s fitting that it be him. He’s the one person on this plane whose opinion of her doesn’t matter. Knowing Ward, however, she doubts he came to make things easier on her.

When her crying ebbs and her breathing evens out, he threads his fingers through her hair to hold her in place while he presses a promise to the top of her head. “I’m going to kill them all.” He sounds so vicious, so angry. It’s comforting. It’s also terrifying.

“What you said,” she says, trying to push away. He doesn’t let her, so she has to tilt her head back to look at him. “Back in the briefing room. About how you knew Anthony was taken.”

Ward smiles a little condescendingly. “You mean about me monitoring the Playground? Or the part about ‘I probably knew she was pregnant before most of the people on this plane’?” That’s not exactly the question she asked, but it is the one she meant. She’s done her best to keep Anthony’s existence hidden from HYDRA - from  _Ward_ , in particular - but it seems he’s known all along. 

His hand runs through her hair. His arm is solid around her, comforting. There was nothing so gentle about his touch the last time they were alone together. Fifteen months ago, trapped in a closet during an attack by a foreign military, they spent their frustrations on each other. She’d been out of the Kree weapon for six weeks and was fed up with the suspicion and worry the team wore around her, not that it’s an excuse, but it’s at least a reason. Whatever Ward’s was, she can’t say, but he seemed as desperate for release as she was. It was rough and messy and left her hiding marks for days afterward. Anthony was a little more difficult to keep hidden.

“You’re never gonna say anything,” Ward says, “because we both know it won’t convince the Inhumans either way. And I’m never gonna say anything because one target on his back is more than enough.”

She rests her head on his chest, lets him take some of her weight. It’s a relief, after so long, that someone knows. Even if that someone is the last person she wanted to.

“I thought you’d try to take him from me,” she confesses, exhaustion loosening her tongue.

“Never,” he says. She can feel the “but” coming in the tension of his chest. “But if Coulson ever loses either of you again, I’m taking you both.”

Ward is capable of terrible things. She should be frightened by his promise. But, as far as she’s concerned, he can do all the terrible things he likes - and with her blessing - if only he’ll bring Anthony back to her.

She shivers, and he holds her tighter to his chest.


	28. out of tune

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For wssummer theme: music

There are a lot of things Grant was prepared to put up with when he joined this flying circus. Forced bonding exercises. A crazy undead maniac at the helm. Taking care of a couple (now three) untrained operatives in the field. Biting down on his urge to kill. Hugs.

But this? This is beyond the pale.

“No.” He stands just inside the lab, out of the way of the doors. He’s got his legs set, his arms crossed, and his  _don’t mess with me_  face on. It’s about as scary as he feels comfortable getting around the team when there’s not a real danger present. (Of course, his  _sanity_  is in danger, so he is definitely willing to push it if he needs to.)

“ _Thank_  you,” Fitz says, gesturing his way as if Simmons might have somehow missed his arrival. She didn’t. Grant’s current posture means he  _owns_  this room. He can actually feel Skye hovering outside, too afraid to follow him in. Or too tired. He _did_ just make her do a hundred push-ups. Twice.

“Oh hush,” Simmons says weakly. The twist to her lips is almost amused, which only makes matters worse. This is not a laughing matter!

“It’s  _June_ ,” Grant says, figuring he should draw her attention to the issue here.

Fitz scoffs. “Be glad she didn’t start sooner. Last year she started in  _January_.”

“It was not that early and you know it, Fitz,” Simmons grouses. She’s looking less amused now. Good.

Grant takes a deep breath, reminding himself that he cannot kill her. “You can’t sing Christmas songs in June,” he says.

“I wasn’t singing,” she says, “I was  _humming_. There’s a difference.”

“Not the point!” That - was a little too harsh. He makes a show of wincing at his own words, running a hand over his face and half-turning away like he can’t face them. From the corner of his eye, he sees them exchange the look they all throw around when they think he’s having a berserker-related outburst. And maybe he is, to lose his cool like that. Doesn’t mean he can’t play it up for some sympathy points. 

He takes a deep breath and walks into the lab, cutting the two of them off from each other by putting himself in the middle. He rests his hands on Simmons’ table and meets her eyes. “Simmons,” he says. “ _Please_.”

She shifts uncomfortably, her eyes going over his shoulder even though she can’t see Fitz past him. “I can’t help it, all right? You think  _I’m_  not annoyed by it as well? I don’t even know why it happens. I only know that at some point every year, when it is wholly inappropriate, Christmas songs start popping into my head.”

“My theory,” Fitz pipes up, “is that Simmons is slightly out of sync with our universe and slightly  _in_  sync with a universe that runs on a timetable uneven with our own, so sometimes their Christmas is in our January, sometimes it’s in our June. Two years ago, it was in October.”

“That was terrible,” Simmons mutters, momentarily lost in memories. Grant twists his palm sharply on the tabletop, causing a squeak that gets her attention back on him. “Absurd theories aside,” she says, “the fact is, I have Christmas songs rolling around in my brain and likely will for the next several weeks. You’ll just have to endure. Fitz does it well enough.” She says all this will an air of finality. As if Grant’s just gonna let this go.

He probably should. His cover would. But, for all his skill, Grant is not his cover and this plane is slowly driving him insane. It was bad enough back in December when Skye hacked the Bus’s loudspeaker system and piped in Christmas music 24/7. But now it’s more than five months later and Grant is  _not_ putting up with this again. 

So he lets Simmons dismiss him, but it’s a tactical retreat. Skye gets off easy. He leaves her to study her field manuals while he heads upstairs. It takes a little while to get what he needs - Skye could probably do it in a matter of seconds, but his tech skills aren’t quite to her level and SHIELD has all sorts of firewalls to get through when accessing civilian services - but once he gets it, he’s back downstairs and in the lab. 

Simmons is humming again when he gets there - “Carol of the Bells” this time - and is too absorbed in whatever she’s doing to really notice him until he’s slipping his earbuds in her ears. She startles so badly he has to put the left one in again. She probably wouldn’t just  _let_ him, but he’s kind of using his body to hold her against the edge of the table.

“What are you doing?” she demands. She lifts her face to him, giving him a great view of the way she swallows at his proximity.

He hits play on his iPod, ensures it’s set to repeat, and reaches around her to slip it in the pocket of her lab coat. He moves to one side, hitching his hip against the table beside her and allowing her some breathing room. “This,” he says with a smile, “is ‘Following the Leader’ from  _Peter Pan_. It is only  _slightly_ less annoying than ‘The Song That Never Ends’ - which, by the way, is my back-up if this fails.” 

She reaches for her pocket and he catches her wrist. 

“You’re gonna listen to this until I say otherwise.”

Her brow furrows in amusement, but there’s something else in her eyes, that thing he’s been trained to recognize in a mark. He holds back a grin. (Something interesting to file away for the future.)

“I mean it, Simmons,” he says, injecting some humor into his tone to lighten the threat, “if you take those out, I will lock you in the Cage and put it on repeat in there. This is for everyone’s sanity.”

“I rather think you mean it’s for  _yours_ ,” she says pertly, and snatches her hand away. She goes pointedly back to her work, but doesn’t reach for the earbuds. Smart girl.

“Watch her,” he orders, pointing a finger at Fitz. He nods, apparently in complete agreement with his methods. 

Skye, in contrast, looks horrified when he makes it back out to her. “’ _The Song That Never Ends_ ’?” she demands. “And I thought you were tough on  _me_.”

He smiles and gestures her towards the punching bag. They’ll all thank him for this later.

(They don’t, but only because Simmons’ humming gets “Following the Leader” stuck in  _all_  their heads. Grant maintains it’s better than Christmas songs in June.)


	29. five hours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "You were gone for five hours!" from writerblocked

Of all the ways Grant anticipated the plan to kidnap Morse going wrong, him waking up tied to a chair with  _Simmons_  standing over him wasn’t one of them.

“There he is,” she says, with just an edge of mocking.

“How you feeling, baby?”  _Kara?_

Simmons steps back and there she is, Kara, frowning at him like she’s worried he’s been hurt.

“Not great,” he says, tugging at the restraints on his wrists. They’re solid, unfortunately. She looks down at them guiltily. He has half a thought to play injured (physically or emotionally or both are good) so she’ll let him out, but Simmons puts a hand on her arm and resolve breaks over her face. “What gives?” he asks, figuring he can’t talk his way out of this without knowing what _this_ is.

They’re not at that base of Coulson’s, the Playground or whatever. But they’re also not at the place he set up in Spain. There’s something about the walls, the color of them and the orientation of the door, that strikes him as familiar.

“We’re in the Morocco base,” Simmons supplies. She turns her back on him entirely and heads to a nearby table.

Grant has no idea what to make of that. He knows it’s one of the only SHIELD bases that didn’t fall to HYDRA, and the only one that was never claimed by any governing authority on grounds of rooting out terrorism. Nobody wants the damn thing.

“Simmons says Coulson won’t bother us here,” Kara says, trying to sound helpful. Which she is, actually - and Simmons knows it too, if the scowl she’s directing at Kara’s back is any indication. Grant now knows Simmons is hiding whatever this is from Coulson, and, unfortunately, that Coulson’s unlikely to find out about it and put a stop to it. Not that he’d care about  _Grant_ , but stopping Simmons from doing something morally reprehensible, that he’d come running for.

“Are you gonna torture me, Simmons?” he asks, injecting a little careless charm into his tone. She may have tried to kill him just days ago, but torture? That’s a whole lot darker than she’s ready for. He can have her begging  _him_  to stop before the first hour’s up.

Kara’s expression shutters at the question. That’s really not a good sign. Grant’s heart drops as he remembers the threats of using the TAHITI protocol on him. No one ever actually said the machine was at the Playground, and Morocco is just the sort of out of the way base Coulson would use to hide something so dangerous.

But Kara wouldn’t go along with that. 

Would she?

“Kara…,” he says, trying to sound hurt and fearful, “baby.”

“It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna get you better.” She reaches for him, but only takes a single step forward before turning to face Simmons. “Aren’t we?”

Simmons looks up from whatever she’s tinkering with over there (it does not look like it’ll be fun for him) and shoots him a look (the look is even worse than the whatever-the-hell in her hands). “We’re going to try,” she says finally.

Kara beams, apparently thinking this is good news.

“And how,” Grant asks, “ _exactly_ , are you going to make me ‘better’?”

Simmons wanders back around the table. The device is still in her hands. From the shape, he thinks it might go on his head.

“Do you remember the day Skye finally got off bed rest?” she asks.

It’s such a non sequitur that Grant has to seriously think about it for a second. She gives him time, waiting patiently for his expression to clear.

“We got lost,” she says, smiling over the memory, “and then we got a flat.” The “we” in this scenario doesn’t include Grant. The Bus was grounded for a while after that Asgardian bitch went home, and the others - Simmons, Fitz, and Skye - had all gone out joyriding in the van. Naturally, they got themselves in trouble. They were afraid May would be angry about the accident, so Grant had to come back early from leave (which he was taking at the same base the Bus was parked at, so not a big deal) to go save them.

“You were hopeless,” he says, hoping a fond tone will remind her of the days when they were still friends. If he can soften her towards him, he can get her to let him out. (Or as good as. He only needs an inch and he can take a mile.) “You guys complained the whole way back to the Bus, like you’d been out there all night instead of just the half hour it took me to get to you. Fitz was turning red, he was so-” He cuts off, seeing the way Simmons’ expression has fallen.

She seems to brace herself and then places the device on his head. He considers trying to shake her off, but she’s more likely to let down her guard if he goes along.

“What’s this gonna do?” he asks warily while she adjusts the device to fit snugly.

“It’s what I used on Kara to ensure that Whitehall’s programming has been completely removed from her mental pathways,” she says. Her eyes are on the device, not him, but her breath falls over his face and her fingers are warm against his scalp. She gets it secure and looks him in the eye. “And on myself, to see if I’d been brainwashed.”

The confession is unexpected. He knew she was undercover, but he also knew Bakshi never questioned her loyalties. She’d saved his  _life_ , and, as both Grant and Simmons know, that sort of thing tends to inspire trust.

“And,” Simmons says heavily, “on you. While you were unconscious.” She squeezes his shoulder. It’s … friendly. Now _that_ , more than anything so far, worries him. “You didn’t reach us in thirty minutes, Ward. You were gone for  _five hours._ ”

No. That’s wrong. That’s absolutely wrong. Grant has an excellent memory - all specialists do, it’s part of the training - and he can remember that night. The call, the lie he told one of the base guards explaining his late night excursion, the hunt for the van in the dark. It was  _not_  five hours.

His eyes narrow on Simmons as she steps back. What is she playing at?

“She’s gonna fix you, baby,” Kara says.

“You think I’ve been brainwashed,” Grant says. The words are meant for both of them, but his gaze is still fixed on Simmons. He can’t get a read on her. “I told Skye-”

“And the truth is, anyone who’s worked for HYDRA could have been brainwashed without their ever knowing,” Simmons says. She grabs a tablet from the table. “That device will also allow us to speed up the healing process. But there  _will_  be some discomfort. That is unavoidable, I’m afraid.” She turns to Kara. “Now’s the time to leave, if you’d rather not see this.”

Kara’s incredibly strong. Anyone who came through being brainwashed without losing it completely has to be. But her expression crumples when she looks at him.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ll be here when it’s done.” She bends to kiss the knuckles of his left hand, and then rushes out the door, leaving him alone. With Simmons.

He smirks at her. “You really have changed.” The Simmons he knew never could’ve pulled a con like this off, wouldn’t even have thought of it. He’s impressed. Not so much that he won’t make her suffer for this once he’s free. But still, impressed.

She drags a chair over to sit directly in front of him, her face impassive. “Shall we begin?” She presses a button on the tablet.

He screams.


	30. shades of red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For wssummer theme: color

Grant’s hands are on fire. His whole body’s aching for a break from the punching bag, but he barely feels any of that. What he does feel is the phantom memory of Christian’s hand on his shoulder, holding him back from helping Thomas. All he can hear is the distant echo of water splashing, his little brother growing weaker and weaker as he tries - and fails - to keep afloat. 

The mat under his feet shifts. There’s someone behind him.

He uses the momentum from his next punch to swing around, grab the attacker, push them back against the van so the hit’ll hurt that much more.

Simmons stares up at him with wide eyes.

His fist stalls inches from her face. Her hair flutters from the force that would surely have ruined that pretty face of hers.

He’s out of control.

“Sorry,” he says because it’s the thing to do more than because he feels it. All he feels is anger. Constant. Unending. Like an ocean that’s sucking him down. And that is really not a great metaphor to go with, given the source of all his rage. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me. Not ever,” he adds. He’s done his best to make the team see him as someone they can trust, but he’s a trained killer. None of them should lose sight of that. Doing it with him is the first step down a very dangerous road. Next thing he knows, he’ll have to save them because they’re taking free candy and getting into vans with assassins.

“I did call your name,” Simmons says. “Six times.” He can feel the breath moving in her chest. He’s still got his hand fisted in her sweater, holding her in place. She’ll probably have a hell of a bruise tomorrow. And that sweater is definitely ruined. 

“I’m not coming to dinner,” he says, and turns back to the bag. He doesn’t want to look at her, not when she’s got a bloody stain right over her heart. Not when he almost killed her a few seconds ago.

“Dinner was hours ago.” She sound almost apologetic, like she’s sorry that she, personally, didn’t call him away from his … his whatever-the-hell he’s doing down here.

“Good. I’m not hungry.” He gears up to deliver another punch.

“I made something for you.”

His muscles go limp. “I said I wasn’t-” He cuts off as she steps up to his side, half-blocking him from the bag. She’s holding a box, too small to hold anything bigger than an energy bar. He has half a thought that she might have made him some super version that’ll let him keep this up all night (or a drugged one; and that thought has him resolving not to take any food from her until this mess is resolved), but when she opens it, there’s no food inside.

“There have been studies,” she says, voice a little too fast the way it always is when she talks science, “about the calming effects of certain colors. Prisoners who wear pink, for example, are less likely to act out or become belligerent. And while there’s nothing I can do for you physically short of giving you a sedative-” Her voice goes high at the end in question. He dips his head down further, increasing the effect of his frown. “Right. Well, short of that, I can attempt to mitigate the effects of the staff psychologically. Hence, rose colored glasses.” She holds them out proudly. 

They look a lot like the glasses Grant wore when he was pretending to be Amador, only the lenses are tinged pink. At least they’re real glasses and not like those big green goggles she wore during the hunt for Hall. Still, there’s no way he’s wearing them.

Simmons’ smile falls by degrees until eventually she curls her hands back to herself, returning the glasses to their case.

“I thought they might help,” she says, far too interested in the simple task. He can just see her teeth pulling at her bottom lip. “Not much, likely, but every little bit-”

“Oh, for the love of…” He snatches the case from her shaking fingers and puts the damn glasses on. He doesn’t see how the hell this is supposed to help. If anything, it’s handicapping one of his senses by casting everything in shades of pink. (And if Skye sees him like this, the teasing will definitely have the opposite effect of the one Simmons intends with this whole farce.) But then he looks at Simmons, who’s smiling again, so glad to have found a way to help.

He’s still angry, that’s not going away anytime soon, but there’s a little bit of happiness in his chest now, next to the furnace of his rage. It’s nice.

“Thank you, Simmons,” he says, rolling his eyes like it’s a chore to be helped. It only makes her smile grow, which was the point.

“If you hate them too terribly, you can always get some revenge by telling Fitz I used his tools without asking.” She steps closer, sliding a hand down his arm to his wrist. She frowns at the damage he’s already done. “When you’ve worked this out,” she says, tipping her head in the direction of the punching bag, “wake me, and I’ll see to your hands.” 

“Simmons-”

“I mean it,” she says firmly. “You’re in no state to do it yourself.”

He watches her head into the lab to grab her tablet before going upstairs. The bright lights in there give him a great view of the rusty stain on her sweater. The glasses turn it a stark, angry red.

He turns his back on her, focusing on the punching bag and the rhythm of his movements. The circle of the well closes in around him, giving him tunnel vision and filling his head with the echoes of Thomas’ cries. He tries not to notice how the ripples in the water look like blood stains in fabric.


	31. if you love me (you'll never let me go)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For wssummer theme: travel

In terms of danger, this is about a four. Sure, Grant’s waking up with no idea where he is and with his hands tied, but whoever did this to him is clearly not a professional. For starters, his hands are  _in front_ of him. That probably has to do with him being seated in what he’s fairly certain is the front seat of whatever vehicle they’re riding in. He’s gonna be out of this in under five minutes and whoever is driving is gonna be dead in six. Seven, if Grant feels especially annoyed.

His brain’s a little fuzzy, so he takes an extra minute to jog his memory. Skye, in the diner. She was working on the hard drive and getting very,  _very_  riled up about the whole HYDRA thing. He remembers worrying she’d figured him out. He was trying to get a better read on her and took his eyes off the door. By the time he looked up again-

His eyes snap open, going straight to the driver’s seat. “Jemma,” he breathes.

“Hello, dear,” she says brightly.  

Grant’s seen his wife in all sorts of states, but behind the wheel of a truck, wearing short-shorts and a tank top is definitely a new one.

“You might be feeling a bit foggy,” she says. “That dendrotoxin variation I gave you was particularly strong. You’ve been out for nearly a day.”

A  _day_. The time limit Garrett gave him was nearly up _before_ , he’s gone way over it now. 

He grits his teeth. “Jemma. Listen to me. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you need to-”

“What I  _need_ ,” she says in a measured tone that is somehow just short of a yell, “is for my husband not to throw away his entire life on a madman.”

“I don’t know what Skye told you, but you’ve got it all wrong.” He pitches his voice low, forcing himself to project calm when he feels anything but. They’re in the middle of the desert, only a few hills in the distance, the road they’re on the only sign of civilization. He’s gotta get word to Garrett, find Skye, get the hard drive cracked… God, this is a nightmare.

He doesn’t even know where Skye  _might_  be. Jemma told her to leave - said she “had things under control” - while Grant was still trying to figure out how the hell his  _wife_  was there in the middle of a mission. If they’re not dead already, the men he had guarding Jemma are definitely going to die. Slowly. They were supposed to keep her with her parents until this whole out of the shadows thing blew over, not just let her hop halfway around the world to blow his operation.

“What’s the plan here, Jem?” he asks.

“You and I,” she says heavily, “are going to be normal people for a while. We’ll spend a few weeks at your safe house outside Laredo. Skye assures me that our identities have been erased - very kind of her to include me too, I think. She’s such a sweet girl. So we’ll have no trouble blending with the local populace once all this blows over. I’m thinking I might try teaching, how does that sound?”

Grant lets his head fall back against the headrest and stares at her. She has to know that’s not an option, not for him.

“Baby,” he says softly.

She doesn’t take her eyes off the road. “I’m kidnapping you, Grant. You’re  _my_  husband, not John’s or the Clairvoyant’s or whatever ridiculous moniker he’s going by nowadays.”

“You know this isn’t gonna work.” He holds up his bound wrists. “I’ll be out of this in a couple minutes and we both know there’s nothing you can do to stop me from taking control of this truck.”

Her hands twist on the steering wheel. “True.”

“So why don’t you just pull over, give me the keys, and you and I can get back to John? I’ll tell him it was all my fault, no harm done. He’s already got a lab all set up for you, just to your specs.”

They begin to slow down, not like she’s hitting the brake, but she’s taken her foot off the gas. It’s better than nothing, and gives him time to undo her knots. Eventually she does pull them over and turn off the engine.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely. 

He has to take a minute, once he’s out of the truck, to let his muscles adjust. Jemma’s probably had a few stops along the way to stretch her legs, but he’s been in the same position since yesterday. He’d love to take a few more minutes just to walk around, but there’ll be time for that later. Right now, they’ve gotta get moving. He comes around the front of the truck and promptly hits his knees as a wave of nausea sweeps over him.

Grant’s used to pain, but pain he can  _identify_. This just came out of nowhere. He drags in deep breaths, hoping it will pass, and slowly comes to realize that his loving, caring wife is not rushing to his aid. He forces himself to look up and finds her on the other side of the highway, well into the dirt and sand past the asphalt. 

“I implanted you with a new prototype,” she calls, her voice growing louder as she comes steadily closer. The nausea lessens with each step she takes. “It has two halves, a - and I’m sorry for this - dominant and a subordinate. When they’re separated by too great a distance, the subordinate implant causes its host to feel- well, what you were feeling just now.” She stops directly in front of him and crosses her arms over her chest. “I imagine it isn’t very fun.”

“You-” he gasps, unable to actually decide on a follow-up. An insult seems appropriate, but he’s pretty sure that’s gonna make it harder to convince her to get the damn thing out of him.

“Yes,” she says pleasantly. “I did. Now, Laredo?”

He stares up at her from his knees. Jemma’s always been brilliant, he just never knew she could turn all that genius to a tactical advantage before. He surges up to his feet, grabbing her and pushing her against the truck in one smooth motion. He hasn’t seen her in nineteen days, which isn’t even close to their longest separation, but it feels a hell of a lot longer with all he’s been through. He takes his time making her knees go weak and enjoying the breathy whimpers she lets out when he dances on the edge of going farther. 

Finally, he pulls back just enough to say, “Laredo.”

She melts against his chest, gifting him with a pleased smile. It’ll take some doing to get out of this - and he is _not_ looking forward to explaining to John that he got kidnapped by his own non-specialist wife - but he’s definitely gonna enjoy lulling her into complacency, convincing her to get the implant out. 

She’s probably planned for all that, has contingencies and back-ups. 

He hopes she has, anyway. It’ll be more fun if she gives him a challenge.


	32. "yes men" redux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "You were gone for five hours." (A second one because I had two ideas and this one wouldn't leave me alone.)

Grant hisses in a breath when his ribs protest his reach for the top shelf.

“ _What_  have I told you?” Simmons asks behind him.

He braces his hands against the counter. She’s not supposed to be here. She’s  _supposed_  to be upstairs with Fitz and Skye, drinking herself into oblivion or crying or yelling. Possibly all three at once.

“I’m fine,” he says, even though he’s not. May beat him pretty bad. Worse, he had the chance to cross her off and missed it because, even brainwashed by some alien Lothario, she was better than him. That hurt’s gonna take longer to heal than his physical ones.

“You most certainly are not,” Simmons says sharply as she comes up behind him. She uses a stool to grab the gauze he was reaching for and, as she comes back down, lets out a gasp. “What did you do to you hand?” 

It really is a mess. He hasn’t had time, what with chasing her and that maniac all over the southwest region, to get it cleaned up. If he’d known they’d get her back so soon, he’d have done something about it sooner.

“It’s-”

“If you say ‘fine,’” she says, her eyes hard, “I will take you off of active duty for a  _week_ , see if I don’t.” She holds his right hand between hers, examining the extent of the damage. “This isn’t from the fight with May. Ward, what happened?” She says it so gently, like he’s the one who needs the moral support here. He can feel the familiar burn of the berserker rage in his veins and it’s only the pain clenching his hands into fists would cause that stops him from doing just that.

“You were gone for  _five hours_ ,” he says softly, his voice shaking with the effort of holding back a yell. 

She looks at him like he’s struck her, which only makes the anger worse. He takes her by the shoulders, angling his head down to look her in the eye.

“Simmons…” He’s not sure what to say. What he is sure of is that he is the  _last_ person on this Bus who should be having this conversation with her. 

She spent the last five hours under the control of an alien who likes playing with women like they’re toys. For more than four of those hours, no one on the Bus had any idea where the two of them were or what they were doing.

Grant’s got a pretty good idea what they were doing.

“Tell me to kill him,” he says. It’s the only thing he can offer her, as far as comfort goes. The head of the bastard who … who … “Tell me to kill him,” he says again, “and I will.” He’s a killer, comes from a whole family of them. At least today he can put it to good use. 

Simmons just stares at him with those big eyes of hers. Bile rises in his throat as he wonders if she looked at that Lorien guy like this. Did she look shocked and scared while he fucked her? Did he make her think she wanted him to?

His hand shakes as she pulls it away from her shoulder. “Let’s get this looked at, shall we?” she asks softly.

He takes a seat on the nearest stool without protest. All he can see are those eyes and the blood stains he’s left on her crisp shirt. 

She’s so damn gentle with him. Seeing to every one of his injuries when she should be upstairs with Fitz and Skye, trying to recover from what that bastard did to her.

“He didn’t.” She says it so suddenly he wonders for a second if he voiced his thoughts aloud, but she’s looking at him almost shyly from the corner of her eye. “He was going to,” she goes on, in that practical tone of voice she uses when she’s trying to detach herself from a case, “and he … touched me. Nowhere inappropriate, but it was the way he …” Her gaze drifts off and she has to shake herself back to the moment. “But he didn’t get around to it.”

That doesn’t do as much to quell his anger as she’s probably expecting it to. He didn’t  _get around to it_? Grant still really wants to kill this guy. And then use that GH-325 stuff on him just so he can kill him again.

He reaches for her with his good hand.

“Now what about this?” she asks, voice pointedly chipper. “Your hand didn’t just bloody itself, now did it? These injuries are hours old.”

He lets his hand drop to his side. “I punched a wall,” he says, figuring he’s gotta be honest since the rest of the team was there when it happened. “When Fandral came back and told us that asshole had you.”

She frowns and bends over his knuckles. He knows what she’s thinking, that there’s no way all this is just from a wall.

He sighs. “In the briefing room.”

She lifts her eyes slowly to him. “You punched a  _window_? Ward! You could’ve lost the hand!”

It hurts, but he twists his hand to catch one of hers. “I lost  _you_ ,” he says. He should’ve been there, shouldn’t have left her alone with Fandral, no matter that Coulson vouched for the guy. “It’s my job to protect you and you were  _gone_.” He grips her hand so hard it’s gotta be hurting her too. “Now tell me to kill him.  _Please_.”

She’s quiet for a long time before saying, “Killing him won’t help me, but-”

“What?” he asks. He’ll do whatever he has to in order to make this right. 

Now it’s her turn to twist her hand out of his. She goes back to cleaning his cuts and he worries for a minute that she won’t give him a job to do. 

“You remember after I fell?” she asks finally. That’s what she calls her jump from the plane. Always a fall, like it was an accident. They should really talk about that too, but that’s a trauma for another time. “After, when I couldn’t sleep…”

She had nightmares. Bad ones. With their bunks right next to each other, he always knew when she’d need some company out in the lounge so she could fall back to sleep. He’d let her talk herself out and when she finally drifted off, he’d put her to bed. They’ve never talked about it in the light of day before.

“I think- I think I might need your help again,” she says, resolutely staring off over his shoulder instead of looking him in the eye.

He’s still the absolute last person on the Bus she should be coming to with this, and yet here she is. The warm feeling that fact sparks in his chest is enough to fight off some of his rage. Enough that he can set aside his murderous desires to say, “Sure. Whatever you need.”

She smiles, and he thinks it might actually be a real one.

That doesn’t mean he won’t kill Lorien if the guy makes one wrong move during the prisoner transfer. That’s just a given.


	33. "ragtag" au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: what if Ward didn't press the button. And stopped the med pods fall it the last moment.
> 
> This is actually two drabbles, both set in the same universe. The second takes place much later and is the result of a first sentence prompt.

“Where’s Fitz?” Jemma croaks. They’re the first words she’s spoken in hours and before that stretch, there was quite a lot of screaming. Most of it directed at the man darkening her door now.

Ward sighs and steps inside. If she’d had any thoughts of overpowering him to escape, they’re silenced by the firm close of the door behind him. 

The cell they’ve got her in is small and she’s grateful when he chooses to sit on the hard ground instead of on the bed with her. His legs stretch out so far the soles of his boots disappear beneath her. She draws her knees up to her chest to avoid any undue contact.

“Not here,” he says. “John doesn’t need a man like Fitz, he’s got plenty of engineers from his dealings with Quinn.”

The tears Jemma’s been holding back for days now burn in her already hurting throat.

Ward leans forward, trying to catch her eye. “I convinced him to hand Fitz over to someone who  _can_ use him - someone who doesn‘t hate him. One of HYDRA’s other heads. He’s  _alive_ , Simmons.”

He means to make her feel indebted to him for allowing Fitz to live. And she wants to. It would be so easy to take the comfort he offers, allow him to be the strong, sure protector she’s known for so many months.

She swallows down her tears. “You don’t know that,” she says, her voice far more steady than she feels. “You have no idea whether he’s dead or alive, whether he’s in a cell like this or being tortured-”

His unhappy smile kills the rest of her accusations. “Fitz is absolutely being tortured,” he says, and Jemma feels the words like a blow to the gut. “Whitehall - the guy John gave Fitz to - he’s old school. He brainwashes people.”

Jemma’s finding it difficult to breathe. Brainwashing has long been an interest of hers, just one of those oddities she can’t quite study enough of. So she knows more about the process than most people, even most people working in the wider world of espionage. The word itself is enough to conjure up images of bonds meant to hold a subject in place, injections and deprivations and the whole gamut of methods to tear down a person’s mental defenses until they’re practically begging to be remade. She sees Fitz, exposed to all of these, and black spots erupt in her vision.

She must pass out - or, if she doesn’t, it’s a near thing - because she finds herself huddled on the floor, with Ward holding her in his arms and shushing her. He’s done it so many times before - less often as the memories of her fall from the Bus have faded or been replaced with new traumas - that there’s no embarrassment. She presses her ear closer to his chest, using the steady rhythm of his lungs and heart to even her own out.

“It’ll be okay,” he says after a while. His hand plays idly with the hairs at the back of her neck. “He’ll be alive. And this part’ll hurt, yeah, but once it’s done, he won’t be afraid or hurt again.”

But he won’t be Fitz anymore. Brainwashing is delicate work under the best of conditions, but with HYDRA scrambling to accommodate so many new, forced recruits, she can only imagine the lack of care Fitz will receive and how that will impact him.

“And that’s better?” she asks.

Ward pulls back so he can look at her. She keeps her eyes on the dingy wall. “Yeah,” he says sincerely. “Better than dead. Which he wouldn’t be yet, honestly. He tried to  _kill_  John. And, if you haven’t noticed, he’s not really a forgiving kind of guy.” He drops his head, nearly brushing her forehead with his. When he speaks next, his voice is thick with regret. “I couldn’t let him do that to Fitz.”

She shakes, and has to grip Ward’s shoulder to keep her seat. He must notice it, but makes no sign of it.

“And me?” she asks. She doesn’t want to, but she’s always been naturally curious. She has to know. “What is Garrett going to do to me?”

“You saved his life on the Bus, after Fitz almost killed him. He’s got no reason to torture you.”

All of a sudden she’s blisteringly angry, though this is hardly the first time he’s given her cause to be. “Unless I refuse to go along, you mean. And then he’ll brainwash me just like Fitz.”

Ward shakes his head. His hand has stopped playing and begun massaging gently at the base of her neck. “That’s not the way we do things here. John thinks brainwashing’s too messy. He likes-” Ward sighs. “He likes using people’s weaknesses against them. He finds the things they love - the  _people_ they love, mostly - and holds them over them.”

There are quite a few people Jemma loves in the world. The thought of them in Garrett’s control, used as leverage over her, is enough to turn her stomach. “Fitz?” she asks, both fearful and hopeful.

“No. Fitz is Whitehall’s now. John won’t touch him, I promise you that.”

It’s little consolation. Fitz at least is - or was - a SHIELD agent. Jemma thinks of her parents and how easy it would be, with the uncertainty in the world right now, for a HYDRA agent to show up at their door and be welcomed inside if he offered news of their daughter.

“Your parents are safe,” Ward says, apparently realizing the direction of her thoughts. She must be terribly easy to read. She’s never regretted it quite as much as she does now. He brushes some of the hair that’s come loose from her ponytail behind her ear. His touch is gentle in a way that sends a shiver through her. “You made the right call on the Bus, saving John. He won’t question your change of heart, so long as it stays changed.”

He’s staring at her intently and she only now realizes that she’s sitting in his lap, has been for the majority of this conversation. His arm is solid around her waist, holding her in place as surely as the walls of this cell.

“You think that I would-” she begins, only to cut off when he pinches the soft flesh of her side.

“I think you’re smart. Smarter than Fitz.” He smiles, and somehow looks so completely different from the man she knew on the Bus. She calls up images of his rage after his encounter with the berserker staff, and even that person was a far cry from this one, this man who kills without remorse and sends good, brave men to be brainwashed as a  _kindness_. “Two little words, Simmons. Two little words, and you and I walk out of here together. You get back to work on the GH-325, just like you wanted, just like  _Coulson_  wouldn’t let you.”

“And if I don’t?” she asks, needing to hear the answer she already knows is coming.

He tilts his head. There’s no apology in his expression, but something akin to it. “Then I walk out alone, grab a few guys, and we take a quinjet to Ashburton.”

It’s worse than she thought, hearing him say it. She drops her eyes from his, allowing herself the length of a single breath to regain her composure. When she lifts them again, Ward is looking at her expectantly.

“Hail HYDRA,” she says. The words leave her feeling sick but Ward isn’t similarly afflicted. He smiles, and this time it doesn’t seem quite so alien to her as it did before.

“Good girl.” He nudges her, prompting her to rise to her feet. It takes him a bit longer, and she has the sudden impulse to check his lingering injuries. She has it half-quashed before remembering that, nominally, they are once more on the same side.

“Would you like me to look at that?” she asks.

His brow furrows in a queer sort of expression. “You never would’ve asked before.” He shakes it off and taps on the door. “You don’t have to now. We're on the same side.”

A week ago she would have teased him about being bossed around by a scientist in front of his specialist friends. Now she only steps past him, willing her spine straight in the face of the HYDRA agents in the hall.

“Take me to my lab, and we’ll see how badly you’ve ruined all my hard work.”

Ward’s arm slips around her shoulders, tugging her tight against his side. “Whatever you say, Agent Simmons.” The title sounds no different for an agent of HYDRA than an agent of SHIELD, but Jemma - and Ward - knows it’s all the difference in the world.

 

 

 

 

...

[some time later]

...

 

 

 

 

"No one got hurt... unintentionally."

Jemma closes her eyes, trying and failing not to imagine what he might have done  _intentionally_. Though she isn’t facing him, something in her posture must give away her distress, because his hand slides around her back to her waist, holding her in place so he can turn her chin towards him.

“Hey,” he says, “the team’s okay.” He sounds so sincere, like he actually cares about her worries. 

She relaxes into his touch as his hand moves into her hair. It’s frightfully easy to accept his comfort, to let his skin against hers and the possessive way he holds her drown out the rest of the world.

And then he brings the world crashing back in. “And they’re gonna stay that way, so long as you…”

She looks to the dark symbol painted on the wall. “Hail HYDRA,” she says softly.

He kisses her temple. “I’ll pick you up after work.” He leaves her still staring into the hollow eyes of the skull.

 


	34. first language

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was another starter sentence prompt but it got longer than the usual quick ficlet.

“But Latin _is_ my first language.”

Ward sighs and hands her the page needing translation.

“Thank you,” she says, plucking it from his fingers. It only takes her a few minutes to finish, though that’s still longer than it should be. “I think whoever transcribed this from the side of the statue got some of it wrong.” Her nose scrunches up. “Like this? This isn’t even a  _word_.”

“It could be another language,” he offers.

She shakes her head. “No, the context doesn’t really allow for it to be a reference or a borrowed term. It’s just sloppy work is what it is.” She slides the finished translation across the table to him. She’s about to say that she’d like to head down to the statue itself and see if she can’t get a more accurate translation straight from the source, but Ward is _staring_ at her. 

It’s nothing new. He’s been doing it ever since she confessed to him. Which makes it terribly difficult not to think about the fact that she  _confessed to him_. Even  _Fitz_  doesn’t know that she’s- that she isn’t-

She can’t even  _think_  it. That’s how completely she avoids the topic of her divinity. Demi-divinity. Whatever. The point is, Ward is the only human being alive on this earth aware that she is a quote-unquote goddess. And he hasn’t stopped staring at her since he found out.

She lays her hands delicately atop the table. “You’re allowed to ask questions, you know,” she says conspiratorially. “About the …  _you know_.”

His brow furrows.

“You’ve been staring,” she supplies. “Quite a lot.” The others have begun to notice. Fitz thinks he’s just overprotective after the Chitauri virus. Skye thinks he has a crush on her.

He smiles. “That’s not why I’m staring,” he says, and she has to hold back her shock. She didn’t expect him to just  _admit_  to it. “I mean, yeah, I’m curious. But that’s not why.”

“So what is it?” she asks around the lump in her throat. “Are you expecting me to suddenly develop a halo?”

His fingers brush against the back of her hand, sending a jolt down her spine straight to her core and reminding her exactly why she told him in the first place. She knew enough about the effects of the berserker staff to know the best way to fight its influence was to redirect that rage into something more pleasurable, but between the increased strength and dulled restraint, there was no way he could safely visit those attentions on a mortal woman. So Jemma offered herself up. Somewhat selfishly, she’ll admit. There are so few men in the world today who fit the old ideals, and while Ward might not be a god, he’s certainly god- _like_.

“Actually,” he says, drawing her out of her memories, “I’ve been thinking about that night. More than I should, definitely.” He looks away with a self-deprecating smile. “It’s stupid, I know. I’m probably just another notch on your headboard.”

His hand curls in on itself and hers feels oddly bereft without his touch.

“No,” she says. “Of course not.”

His eyes go wide. “No. I didn’t mean-” He hisses in a breath. “I don’t mean in a bad way. Just- you’ve probably been with a lot of people in your life. In a century or two you won’t even remember me.” 

Her reassurances - that she didn’t take his words as an insult, that she  _will so_  remember him a hundred years from now - are stalled by his next words.

“And here I am, wishing I stood half a chance of making an impact. Not that I could even if you were interested. There’s rules and regulations, and you probably don’t even like guys like m-”

She cuts him off by tentatively touching his hand the way he did hers. “You want to … make an impact?” she asks.

He smiles a little awkwardly, a little hopefully. “Yeah.”

She curls her fingers around his palm, drawing his hand back to the center of the table. “Well. I think that might be a real possibility.” 

He’s right in his assumption that she’s had no small number of lovers over the ages, and she’s sure she’s forgotten a few of them. But Ward has that feel about him, the one that means a person will have a _big_ impact. Generally that means on the world at large, but Jemma won’t mind if some of it reaches her in the short time they have before her immortality forces her away.

He twists their hands together, his expression more warm and open than she’s ever seen it. She could get used to seeing him like this.

“We can talk about it more,” she offers, “on the way to the statue so I can get a decent translation.”

He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t seem terribly put out, pulling her to her feet. He drops her hand the moment they reach the cargo bay so Fitz and Skye don’t see, but readily laces their fingers again once they’re on the road. Oh yes, she definitely wants to keep him as long as she can.


	35. poison in the blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No prompt this time, just a minific too short for its own AO3 post.

Perhaps it’s that Fitz has barricaded himself in his bunk, too embarrassed by his actions to face her, and without him Jemma is craving conversation. Perhaps it’s scientific curiosity as to the nature of the drug’s effects on one member of the crew versus another. Perhaps it’s pride. 

Whatever the reason, Jemma finds herself sitting on the last step, watching Ward go to work on the punching bag. He moves in a steady rhythm, something she finds especially impressive given his propensity for getting injured. Even the gunshot wound he suffered just a few short months ago should have caused him some trouble with that shoulder, but he shows no signs of it now.

“What?” he asks after several rounds.

She straightens a little at his acknowledgement of her presence. “I wanted to ask…” She’s not quite sure how to phrase this. Perhaps she should have been considering _that_ instead of his physique.

His rhythm slows so that he might roll his eyes. “Yeah, I kind of figured.”

The fond exasperation spurs her to speak. “You were exposed along with Fitz.”

The speed of his punches increases. “Yeah.”

“But you showed no signs of it.”

He shrugs. “Must not have gotten as strong a dose.”

That’s just patently false. Ward was in the cargo bay - much as he is now - for a full hour while the broken canister was flooding the lower level with gas. Fitz was only downstairs for two minutes before showing signs.

Jemma looks away at the memory of his lips on hers. Ward was actually the one who pulled him away from her - and then she noticed the gauge on the canister and there was the quarantine to engage. Everything went very quickly after that.

“Did you feel anything?” she asks, coming back to her original point. “Any unexpected urges or sensations?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.” Her disappointment is purely scientific. She was hoping for a little more data to study. Of course this does open up new possibilities. Perhaps concentration plays an important role. The wider area of the cargo bay may mean that Ward’s body had time to build up an immunity through small doses before he could be overwhelmed. 

She stands to head for the lab. At least now she has something to test.

“Hell,” Ward mutters. 

She has only a split-second to worry that he’s hurt himself before he’s on her much the same way Fitz was earlier. At the same time, however, it’s completely different from Fitz. There’s none of the awkwardness that colored Fitz’s attempts, but all of the desperation. In very short order he leaves her breathless. She stumbles when he steps back, putting a sizable distance between them. 

“No unexpected urges,” he says, and goes back to the punching bag.


	36. mothers and fathers (1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fic for Mother's Day.

Jemma runs about three dozen tests before she can no longer deny the veracity of the intel Ward brought them. _And_ the intel Bobbi went in and stole at great personal risk. _And_ the intelligence she can gather with her own two eyes.

Hunter’s waiting with a cold beer when she’s finally done denying the fact and she spends another twenty minutes nursing the damn thing before forcing herself down to quarantine. 

There was some question as to how they were going to handle this. Putting Ward in Vault D is everyone’s preferred choice, but it’s not _just_ Ward this time and separating them seemed cruel. Coulson’s words. Jemma couldn’t believe he’d even think so. Obviously anyone would be better off separated from Ward than with him, but when she reaches the lower labs, she’s not so sure.

She’s never seen this expression on Ward’s face, not even when he was feigning vulnerability, pretending to care about all of them. He’s staring like it’s Christmas and he wasn’t even expecting a gift but ended up with the best one of all. It could be a play. It  _has_  to be a play. 

That in mind, she forces herself to key in the access code on the door. There’s no actual quarantine in effect, this is just the most secure room they have that isn’t a cell.

Ward looks up the moment she enters, the wonder disappearing from his expression before he even meets her eyes. “Simmons,” he says, carefully neutral. He doesn’t bother to rise from his seat on the edge of the bed. “I was wondering how long it’d take you to get down here.”

She ignores what may or may not be an insult in his tone, and instead makes her way around the edge of the room until she’s even with him. A faint gurgle sounds from inside the bassinet sitting between them. It’s like a hook in Jemma’s heart and naturally it  _hurts_ , but at the same time it doesn’t. She has no idea how such a thing is possible, but it reminds her somewhat of that moment Fitz woke up. She was so, so glad he was going to live, but also terrified for what he had suffered.

The child - a girl - reaches for Ward’s hand. Jemma’s breath catches in her throat when he reaches back, but there’s no need. He only allows his hand to hover over the tiny chest so that she can catch his little finger in her tiny fist. Of course he isn’t going to hurt the baby. She’s the only thing keeping him alive and relatively free.

Unbidden, a memory of the team’s return to base flashes through her mind. The way Ward cradled the tiny bundle in his arms and refused to take his eyes off her once he’d surrendered her to the care of Jemma’s medics. Jemma herself remained far back from the action, watching the team’s return via the security feeds.

“She’s healthy,” she hears herself saying.

Ward looks up sharply, hope heavy in his eyes. “Really?”

She nods and takes a step closer. Big, dark eyes find her and rest unapologetically on her face. Another tug of the hook, this one pulling more of her than just her heart. “Yes. She’s in perfect health. No signs of implants or experimentation.”

“Other than making her,” Ward mutters. 

“Other than that,” Jemma agrees softly. Part of her employee contract with HYDRA involved the collection and storage of her biological material for potential experimentation. She hadn’t thought anything of it, figuring it was just an easy way of getting massive amounts of varied samples for testing. She never imagined they’d actually use it. And certainly not in conjunction with samples taken from Ward to make a  _child_.

She laughed when he came to them, asking for help to rescue her. It was so absurd. Even if HYDRA was really delving back into eugenics, the odds of the two of them being paired were astronomical. But then Bobbi confirmed that there was, in fact, a child in danger. And now Jemma’s done every possible paternity test multiple times. The facts are undeniable. 

“You want to hold her?” Ward asks. He’s smiling at her. It’s his old, boyish smile, the one that used to melt her heart back on the Bus, only now it’s made a little rougher by the scruff he refuses to shave away. It’s not so innocent or kind anymore, but it’s still dangerously endearing.

“Yes,” she says, not to him but to … to their daughter. She will have to get used to that.

Ward tries to pull his hand away but she holds fast. “She’s strong,” he says in a tone of voice she’s never heard him use before. It shouldn’t be coming out of his mouth. He shouldn’t even be allowed near a child, no matter that she’s his thanks to mad science. But he continues to surprise. Instead of tugging away, he stands over the bassinet and reaches down, forcing the baby to let go or bend her arm. She’d rather reach for her father’s face, it seems, and soon Jemma finds herself holding a tiny person in her arms.

The hook’s out of her now, but Jemma finds herself in the fisherman’s boat, never to be returned to the life she had before in the water. Those big eyes are on her again and tiny fists wave between them, pounding gently on her collarbone.

“She looks like you,” Ward says. He’s retreated to the bed again and is watching them both with blatant interest.

 _Good_ , Jemma thinks, but with her heart in her throat she can’t say as much. She catches one of the fists and it wraps around her thumb. The baby -  _her_ baby - really is strong. She can’t help but think she gets that from her father.

Ward must see the tears building in her eyes because he says, “We’ll keep her safe. I won’t let anyone hurt her.” It’s the most like himself he’s sounded since she came down here. There’s so much ferocity in it, it’s actually comforting.

She meets his eyes, using this moment to remind herself just who and what he is. The father of her child, yes, but also a liar and a murderer and a traitor. A man who always has a dozen back-up schemes running out of sight.

“Neither will I,” she says evenly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is a follow-up to this one.


	37. mothers and fathers (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No prompt, just a follow-up to the previous chapter for Father's Day.

Grant’s been back in the Vault for five hours, exercising and meditating and - once or twice - even throwing a punch at the walls just so the pain would bring him back to reality. Five long, agonizing hours before familiar footsteps come down the stairs. He’s never heard them come down here before, but he’s had ample opportunity to memorize the weight and shuffle of them in the last few months. He actually finds them soothing most nights and might welcome the sound now, if her seeing him like this weren’t the last thing he wants.

“Go away,” he barks, keeping his back resolutely to the stairs. “Get the hell out of-”

Jemma’s gentle “Language!” is drowned out by a temperamental gurgle.

Grant whirls. Lucy is in Jemma’s arms, struggling against her and reaching for him. Once, she actually broke free of Jemma and Grant plucked her right out of the air. Since then, Grant’s always come right away when she started reaching for him, to save all their nerves. This time, he backs away until his shoulders hit the wall.

“Get her out of here,” he says, eyes fixed on that frustrated little face. 

The Inhuman he was sent to bring in this morning had the ability to alter the emotions of whoever she touched. Everyone else on the mission recovered before they made it back to the Playground, but Grant came straight down to Vault D and told Coulson to lock him in. He’s  _angry_ , like he’s holding the staff again for the first time. He’s not gonna risk Lucy’s safety. Or Jemma’s.

He drags his eyes away from their daughter to look Jemma in the eye. “Go.”

She shifts Lucy higher on her hip, trying to get control of her. “She wants you.” Usually Grant would be thrilled by just low little annoyance there is in her tone, but not today. “She knows you came back from the mission and she doesn’t understand why you haven’t come to see her.”

She’s smart, their little girl.

Grant carefully schools his features and approaches the barrier. “I love you, Luce,” he says, and Lucy’s eyes light up at the attention. “But you gotta go with Momma now, okay? It’s your bedtime.”

Lucy cringes at the word, her face twisting the way it does before a cry.

“Get her out of here,” Grant begs, turning away. She’s never gonna understand why he won’t comfort her. It’s better that she cry herself out upstairs. Hopefully by the time she wakes up tomorrow he’ll be safe to come out.

He’s physically shaking, torn apart by rage and frustration. He reaches out for the wall, letting it take his weight, and closes his eyes to shut himself off in his own little world until Lucy’s cries fade away. He’s so caught up in his attempts at remaining calm that the light touch on his arm has him leaping away like a frightened deer. 

Jemma’s crossed the barrier, and Lucy with her. Again, her face twists, hurt that he’d pull away from her.

“Oh, baby,” he says in apology. Instinct has him reaching for her before he realizes what a mistake that will be.

“No,” Jemma says sternly, stepping forward when he would move back. She puts Lucy in his arms, forcing him to take her or drop her. 

“I’ll hurt her,” he says weakly, even as Lucy clings to him, burying her face in his neck.

Jemma sits on the edge of the narrow bed and looks anywhere but at him when she finally says, “No. You won’t.” 

He’s so stunned by the admission, he can’t think of an answer. Jemma trusting him to hold Lucy and watch her in the Playground and even to sleep in her quarters (on a spare cot), is a far cry from her openly saying she trusts him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she snaps. “You’re a good father, much as it pains me to admit, and you’d never hurt Lucy.” Her expression softens as it falls on their daughter. “Even by staying away at bedtime.”

It’s impossible to tell from this angle, but he thinks Lucy’s eyes might have slipped shut already. Her fist in his shirt is definitely slack.

He tries to join Jemma on the bed, but she gets up before he can and begins pulling down the blankets for him. With nothing else to do, he climbs in, careful of Lucy as he goes.

Once he’s settled, the mattress depresses on one side as Jemma leans over him to press a kiss to Lucy’s head. “Night, my love,” she says, same as she does every night, and then she’s climbing in with them.

It’s not that they’ve never slept together - sleeping arrangements get a little fluid at two in the morning when there’s a crying baby involved - but this is the first time it’s ever happened when they weren’t both exhausted. Even last week, when he was sleeping sitting against the side of the bed and she pulled him in, she was half-asleep. And, most importantly, Lucy’s always been between them. Here, there’s not enough room for that, and Jemma’s curled into his side, her head on his shoulder opposite Lucy. 

He’s calm, he realizes suddenly. Not completely, but the rage has been relegated to its familiar smolder ever since Lucy settled against his chest. He might even be able to get some sleep tonight. Eventually. For now, he’d rather stay awake, enjoying the chance to rest with his girls.


	38. "I told you to apologize"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I told you to apologize"

Grant is covered in sweat and grime and blood (mostly not his own). His bones  _hurt_  from that fall he took and he hasn’t been anywhere within a hundred miles of air conditioning in two days, but damned if he doesn’t love field work.

“A successful mission, sir?” Evie asks as he disembarks the quinjet. She knows it was a successful mission, it’s her job to monitor the status of all ongoing activity, but it’s nice to be asked.

“Very,” he says with a feral grin that makes the guards shadowing her pale slightly. He should really put some less jumpy men on his assistant, but the few people who aren’t completely terrified of him are needed in the field. “How have things been going at home?” 

Evie falls into step just behind him as he sweeps out of the hangar. “Good,” she reports hastily. “The Qatar office has fished their renovations and the London office has been retaken, all according to schedule. Project Wolfhound is proceeding faster than anticipated. The techs on level C say they’ll have a working product within the month. Project Luna hasn’t seen any movement forward. Project Marathon had a breakthrough! It’s really exciting, actually-”

Grant stops in the middle of the hallway and holds up a hand. “What was that middle one?”

“Project Wolfhound is ahead of schedule?”

He turns slowly to face Evie. It’s not like her to be skittish - that’s the whole reason she even has this job - and there’s only one thing that can cause this kind of reaction in her.

“Project Luna,” he says. Evie nods glumly. Grant can’t blame her, his post-mission high is already fading fast. “Where is she?”

“The biolabs, 7G.”

Grant nods curtly. “Send all the reports I’ve missed to my office and be sure there’s a hot meal waiting for me when I make it up to my room.”

“Yes, sir.” Evie could do all that from right where she’s standing, but he doesn’t begrudge her the opportunity to escape.  _Grant_  doesn’t even want to be there when he reaches the biolabs. But he has to, it’s part of being top dog.

Going all the way upstairs to his rooms to change would take longer than he’d like to waste, and besides, she’ll be pissed as hell when he tracks mud from halfway around the world into her nice, pristine labs. And he  _really_  wants to piss her off right now.

Agents get out of his way fast as he makes his way to the labs and not a single one of them meets his eye. Usually he’d like that sort of treatment, but he has the feeling, the closer he gets to his destination, the less it’s about  _him_  and the more it’s about  _her_.

He finds her right where Evie said, talking to anyone within earshot about whatever it is she’s working on. Marathon, if he had to guess, but he can never really tell. Every eye but hers turns right to him when he enters the room, and he gives them all a swift gesture to get out. Simmons’ shoulders hunch over her microscope and her chatter dies out. At least he doesn’t have to shake her to get her to notice him, that never helps their negotiations.

“I told you to apologize,” he says once the room is cleared.

She switches out her slides, her expression aloof. “And  _I_  told  _you_  that Dr. Watts was an idiot and should be fed to those superdogs I gave you last month.”

He rolls his eyes. “We can’t feed people to the superdogs. They’ll get a taste for human flesh and turn on us. I’ve  _told_  you-”

She waves him off, moving down the lab table to do … something. He doesn’t care. He just wants HYDRA working like the well-oiled machine he rebuilt it to be. 

She’s been like this since day one, when he and the men he’d gathered came to Whitehall’s former base and found  _Simmons_  of all people lounging in the head office.  _What took you?_  she asked, like she’d been waiting on him. Which, as it turned out, she was. 

Apparently, Whitehall got to her just like Kara. Only she was a long term play, left in hopes of reestablishing HYDRA within SHIELD. That plan didn’t quite work out, obviously, but there was a back-up, and it brought her to Grant. She’s got the science side of things covered, but she needs someone else to handle the murder and mayhem.

“We need the Luna project,” he says, trying to project patience. “And for that we need Watts.” He tips his head to one side as something occurs to him. “ _Did_  you feed him to the dogs while I was gone?”

Her eyes move in his direction for the first time, but don’t quite reach him. She pouts. “No. Your men said they had very specific orders not to kill anyone for me.” Now she looks at him, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. “Which is absurd. How am I meant to inspire fear into my subordinates if I can’t order them shot?”

He approaches her slowly, smiling to put her off her guard. “I think you’re more than capable of inspiring fear all on your own.”

“Really?” 

“Do you know how hard it is to find guards for your lab?” Those few men who aren’t too afraid to work with him in the field? They’re terrified of her. It’d be hysterical if Grant wasn’t so peeved by it. He may have to share leadership of HYDRA with Whitehall’s last secret weapon, but he didn’t spend half his life training to be less feared than Jemma Simmons. (And would it have killed the ancient bastard to have made her compliant towards  _anyone else_? Sometimes he thinks half the shit she pulls isn’t about him so much as it’s about messing with whoever tried stepping into Whitehall’s shoes.)

She hasn’t backed up, so he presses his luck and slips his arms through hers, pulling her up against him. “You’re dirty,” she says, frowning down at him.

“Look at that,” he says in mock surprise. “I guess I need a shower.”

She doesn’t embrace him, but her hands do drop limply to her sides. “That’s really the best you could come up with?”

He shrugs. “I’m hot, tired, hungry, and hot. Do you really need better?”

“You said ‘hot’ twice.”

“I meant it two different ways.”

She smiles at his deadpan response. “Fine. But only if you promise I can have Watts killed after he finishes Luna.”

He turns to head for the door, pulling her into his side as he does. “Whatever you want, baby.”


	39. sparknotes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “Does anyone have sparknotes on how to get this to work?”

There are days when Grant loves being Skye’s teacher. Yeah, he’s shocked too. But it turns out he really loves teaching, taking someone under his wing and all that. He might get why Coulson enjoys it so much he'd put this team together.

But then there are days like today.

“Here we- wait,” Skye says. “I think it’s- there?  _Dammit!_ ” She’s finally figured out the difference between the safety and the magazine release, and to celebrate, Grant is having her run assembly drills. Two days ago she couldn’t  _not_  find the release. Now it takes a miracle for her to track the thing down.

Bored with her attempts, he lets his gaze wander to Fitz and Simmons coming down the stairs. Fitz pulls a face at the sight of Skye still at it, while Simmons smiles like she’s holding back a laugh. Grant can’t blame her.

“Stop that,” Skye says. She’s still staring intensely at the gun, like if she concentrates hard enough, it’ll magically break apart for her.

“Stop what?” he asks.

“Looking at them. It’s distracting.”

“How is me looking at them dis- good job.” She finally found the release.

He glances down at the stopwatch. This is her third time around and it only took her four minutes to get this far. She’s improving.

Ten agonizing minutes later, she has the gun reassembled and holds it up proudly. 

He nods in approval. “Again.”

Her face falls. “ _No_ ,” she whines. “I can’t do it again. Why are you so  _mean_?”

He responds by restarting the stopwatch. Her pained groan is music to his ears. (He might, he thinks, also like teaching for moments like these. He’s kind of an ass.)

Skye struggles for exactly fifteen seconds before dropping the gun on the crate they’re using as a table and declaring, “I can’t do it! Does anybody have sparknotes or something for how this works?” She folds her arms over her knees and buries her head in them, apparently taking the ostrich approach to the problem. Grant only watches the time tick by, absently noting Simmons approaching from the lab.

“Still having trouble?” she asks, her mouth twisted in sympathy.

Skye moans into her arms.

“Did you need something?” Grant asks as Simmons kneels down beside Skye to run a sympathetic hand over her back.

“Just checking in, you missed lunch.” She picks up the gun, turns it this way and that, but never so that he has to grab it away from her for safety’s sake.

“She can have lunch when she can do it in less than ten minutes.”

“ _Ten minutes?_ ” Simmons echoes, looking to Grant in horror. Skye moans again.

Grant’s not really concerned with either of their feelings. He’s much more worried about what Simmons’ hands are up to.

“Really, Skye,” she says, “that’s just sad. It’s not even that difficult.”

“Oh,  _really_?” Skye demands. She finally comes out of her cocoon, but her angry tirade stops before it starts when she sees Simmons setting down the final pieces of the gun on the crate.

“See?” Simmons asks with a shrug. “Not hard at all. There’s salami already sliced in the fridge when you’re ready.” She gets up and heads for the lab, oblivious to the shock she leaves behind her.

Suddenly Skye whirls on Grant. “How fast did she do that?” 

He looks down, but the stop watch is still recording Skye’s time. “I have no idea.” He stops it and immediately looks to the lab again. It’s like his eyes have a new default  _look at Simmons_  setting.

“I’ve gotta have her show me how she did that.” Skye jumps up before Grant can protest, not that he would. He’s kind of stuck on the sight of Simmons disassembling the gun. 

He gulps and shifts slightly in his seat. He wouldn’t mind seeing her do it again himself.


	40. in the dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For wssummer theme: thief
> 
> Warning: NSFW

Finally -  _finally_  - Jemma feels that heaviness in her muscles that says while her mind is still all too willing to spin away, her body is quite done and will be dragging her down into sleep any moment now. And of course  _now_  is just the moment her bedmate chooses to give a sharp tug on the thin blanket, jarring her abruptly back to full wakefulness.

She lifts herself up on her arms and gives the back of Ward’s head a withering glare in the pale light. The moon outside is full but the windows of this old cabin (more of a shack really) are filthy. She gives it a long moment, hoping the intensity of her gaze will be enough to get her fair share of the blankets returned to her. It is not.

She reaches over - farther than necessary, if she’s quite honest; she wants him to see her hand - and grips the blanket to pull it back over her. She nearly makes it fully onto her side again before his hand fists in the fabric, holding it taut.

“Didn’t your parents ever teach you to  _share_ , Simmons?” he asks.

“Well we certainly know yours didn’t,” she snaps back. Determined, she angles her body around her fist so that she can lay properly with her back to him beneath her spoils. It brings her closer to him than she’s dared come since laying down, but it’s well worth it for the victory. “And besides, I shouldn’t have to share. Between the two of us, I’m the only one who isn’t a murderous traitor. By rights,  _I_  should get the whole bed and  _you_  should take the floor.”

He barks out a laugh, and she swears she can hear some rodent scurrying in the dark.

“I hate to be the one to break this to you,” he says, and she can hear his smile, damn him, “but you murdered Bakshi. I was there. I know. And you were undercover in HYDRA. Which reminds me of _some_ one, oh who was it? … Oh, that’s right. Me. Undercover in  _SHIELD_. So get off your high horse.” He pulls at the blanket so hard it rolls her right into his side.

She scrambles away, kicking far more than is necessary. For the most part, he ignores her, up until her heel brushes past something that is _not_  his leg and he lets out a faint “oof.” She isn’t proud, wouldn’t be even if she  _had_  managed to injure him so severely. She knows immediately she has made a terrible mistake.

In a heartbeat he’s on top of her, pinning her to the lumpy mattress with his weight. She has the silly thought that he’s much warmer than the blanket, which she vaguely registers as falling off the edge of the bed entirely.

“You wanna tally my sins?” he asks, his voice low and threatening. It falls over her face, seems to travel right down to her core where it collides with the pressure his knee is holding between her legs. “Let’s talk about  _yours_. How many people did you betray inside HYDRA?”

She shakes her head. Not much, not with his hands on either side of her head. “It’s not the same.”

Light glints off his smile like a knife. “Really? You wanna tell that to all the people you left behind, the ones who don’t know who to trust anymore? How about the wife and kids who are never gonna see their dad again because  _you_  framed him for  _your_  crimes?”

That pleasant curl in her gut isn’t quite so pleasant anymore. She swallows down the sour taste in her mouth.

Ward leans closer. For a moment she’s afraid he’s going to kiss her, but he detours to speak directly into her ear. “Face it, Simmons. You are just. Like. Me.”

She hates him. It terrifies her how much, because that, more than anything, proves how right he is. The woman who first met him on the Bus didn’t have this much darkness inside her, so much she thinks that might be all she is anymore.

He lifts himself back up, that self-satisfied smile still in place. His head tips to one side, mocking. “The others have finally figured it out too, haven’t they? That’s why you’re hiding out here with me instead of signaling SHIELD.”

He looks away, dismissive, and makes to roll off her. The slight easing of pressure feels like he’s opened a canyon between them. If he goes back to his side of the bed now, she’ll spend the rest of the night feeling empty with only the darkness for company.

She reaches up before he can really move away. Her teeth clang against his and she tastes blood - she can’t tell whose. She can feel the hesitation in his muscles, but it’s gone before she even thinks to pull away. He drags her to him. 

In short order, their clothes follow the blanket. His fingers and lips and tongue are almost punishing in their attentions, and she returns as good as she gets. He draws her out, keeping her on the edge as long as possible. When she finally comes, she bites down on his shoulder hard enough to draw blood.

She collapses against the mattress, too wrapped up in the pulse of her own body and the feel of him inside her to even consider moving now.

He brushes sweat-drenched hair from her face and neck, and she wonders how she must look; spent, with the dust of the day still clinging to her and his blood in her teeth. His smile is sharp as ever, but there’s approval there now in place of disdain. It thrills her more than it frightens her.


	41. A Survey of South American Flora and Fauna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For wssummer theme: flora and fauna

Grant really hates rain forests. Just saying. Any place where rule number one is “don’t lean against the tree” (and not a specific tree, oh no, just  _any damn tree_ ) is bad in his book. But here he is, sweating through his tac gear in what was only last week a war zone just so Simmons can get her samples. He makes a sort of game of it, using the whirr of the machete through the air to cut through her words as cleanly as he does through the foliage.

Five-syllable word.  _Thwack._  Musing about the lunar cycle.  _Thwack._  Comment about Fitz being a complete wuss for staying behind. (That one he doesn’t mind so much.) 

There’s a flower out here somewhere that’s extremely poisonous, so of course Simmons wants one. It’s only in bloom for two weeks a year - the hottest, muggiest weeks of the year, naturally. Grant slams the blade into the bark of a tree and pulls his canteen off his belt. Three deep gulps, pausing in between, and some of the pressure building behind his eyes fades. He holds the canteen behind him for Simmons to take - the way she’s talking, she’s probably burning off more energy than he is cutting their path through the jungle.

“It’s all right,” she says, and something about her tone tells him she’s not talking about water (which she damn well knows she needs out here). Her voice is pitched sort of round, like she’s-  _shit_ , like she’s talking to a wild animal.

He turns on the spot, his hand going to the handle of the machete, and sure enough there is a  _huge freaking snake_  making its way down her body. Its head is nearly to her knees but its tail is still somewhere in the branches overhead, with no sign of appearing soon.

“It’s all right,” she says again. The fingers of one of her hands lift, splaying out in his direction in a  _stay back_  gesture. “You’re a beautiful thing, aren’t you? You’re too full from your last meal to eat anyone, I know.”

Grant lifts an eyebrow because  _really?_  She lifts hers right back, looking up towards the branches, and sure enough a big ol’ lump appears in the next coil to drop down. It’s … very disturbing. Especially when the edge of the lump brushes Simmons’ cheek. Grant’s not prone to nausea, not in his line of work, but he swallows something down all the same.

She’s wearing a tank top in deference to the climate and without her usual high collars he can see her pulse beating in her throat. His grip on the machete tightens. He knows exactly the amount of force it would take to pull it from the tree and the arch to swing it in to chop off the snake’s head.

The snake isn’t concerned. It glides lazily into the brush, totally at ease with the mini-heart attacks it’s just given the two apex predators. When it’s nearly gone, its tail flicks off of Simmons with such force that she nearly falls. Grant jumps over the swiftly disappearing body to catch her before she can (hitting the ground is just as bad as leaning against a tree around here). 

He’s not surprised when she starts shaking and her fingers twist in his vest. He runs his hands up and down her bare arms, they feel chilled under his palms even in this heat.

“Why didn’t you let me kill it?” he demands, as angry at himself as he is at her. If it wasn’t for his damn cover, he’d have killed it and dealt with her displeasure later. 

Her voice is thin and shaky like she just came in from the cold, but she still manages to sound exasperated when she says, “ _Eunectes seiunis_  is  _venomous_ , and snakes are capable of biting even after their heads have been severed from their bodies.”

His skin prickles with awareness and he can’t help a glance after the snake. It’s disappeared completely into the underbrush. It could be anywhere.

“How venomous?” he asks.

“Let’s just say I’m in no shape to be dragging your bloated body back to the Bus, and leave it at that.”

Slowly, she plucks her fingers from the straps and pockets of his vest. A roll of her shoulders is a clear sign she’s steady enough to stand on her own, but he keeps hold of her a second longer, just so she knows he’s still got her.

He steps back and she drags in a ragged breath that he’s pretty sure isn’t all from the near-death experience.

“Shall we?” she asks, overly bright.

He grabs the machete from the tree. “Stay close,” he orders.  _He_  may be able to carry  _her_  back to the Bus, but that doesn’t mean he wants to. She mutters something about the diameter of his swing and more pressing dangers than an already-fed anaconda, but he barely hears it under the whistle of the blade through the air and the thwack of it slicing through branches. Back to normal.


	42. witness statements

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during TRACKS and staring Stan Lee's cameo because I couldn't resist.

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Sam (that’s Samuel Lawrence III, young man, S.L. for short if you’re in a rush) says to Jennifer on his right; to Shireen on his left he says, “I am never traveling by train again. This is ridiculous.” He’s sitting on an old steamer trunk in an  _orchard_  because the train broke down in the middle of nowhere. “You know what happens if a bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere?” he asks the sharply dressed man taking his statement. He introduced himself as a locomotive incident adjuster (whatever _that_ is) with the railroad but he’s one of those SHIELD fellas if Sam ever saw one.

“Wait for the next one to come along,” the man - who cannot be more than thirty - says dryly. (Sam is far from his first interview of the day and it’s really shocking how many train-related incidents there are that SHIELD has to cover up.)

“You wait for the next one to come along!” Sam says. “And you know what you do if a  _plane_  breaks down in the middle of nowhere?”

That gives the “adjuster” pause.

“You  _die_!” Sam says definitively. He leans back into Shireen’s comforting arms. “And that’d be a helluva lot more fun than _this_.”

“I promise you, sir, we’re moving things along as quickly as possible. Now, if you’d just tell me what you saw.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you what I saw!” Sam sits up again, gesturing for the adjuster to come closer. “I saw that nice young woman in coach, the one sitting with her father?  _Big_  fight about her dearly departed mother - rest her soul. I tell you, I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed her. Had that look to him, you know?  _Shifty_.”

The adjuster’s eyes widen and dart from side to side like he’s looking for an escape route. Sam grabs him by his tie before he can get away.

“But that’s not all! The father went running off soon after, looking like he was  _sick_  or something, and a few minutes later one of the conductors came in. Handsome young man. Very tall. He went straight to the girl and whatever he said, it made her go  _white_.”

“Sir-”

“Didn’t it?” Sam asks, looking over his shoulder at Shireen. She nods. “Right! And then she grabbed for his arm and Jennifer here heard what she said.”

“She said he was hurt,” Jennifer says eagerly. “And he was definitely bleeding.”

“Bleeding! And limping too, like he’d been in a fight! And then he sent the girl running off the other way down the train while he went towards the back.” Sam lets go of the adjuster’s tie and sits back. “Never saw either of them again.”

The adjuster loosens his tie and clears his throat. “Well, that’s all very inter-” He pauses, his eyes slipping shut. “What about the father?” he asks like he really,  _really_  doesn’t want to. Sam knew he’d get there eventually.

“Never saw him either. You know what I think happened?”

The adjuster sighs as his eyes open. “What do you think-”

“They killed him! The girl and the conductor  _clearly_  knew each other, ask anyone in that car! I tell you, he’s probably her secret boyfriend and that overbearing father of hers didn’t want them together. He drove them to this!” He shakes his head. “Poor kids. You gotta feel sorry for them. Not,” Sam adds, seeing the adjuster’s uncomfortable expression, “that that makes it right. But they’re young and foolish and in love, and now they’ll never be together. So sad.”

The adjuster takes a half-step back. “Thank you for that analysis. We’ll definitely keep our eyes out for them.” He smiles as politely as he can, suddenly grateful for all those Academy courses on hiding his true feelings beneath a mask, and makes his escape at a slow, easy pace. He spots a cluster of agents - Morales, Fox, and Rand - and makes a beeline for them. He doesn’t bother with polite hellos and they don’t look like they want any. “That is the  _third_  person who thinks Ward and Simmons are having some kind of affair.”

Fox laughs. “Did he think they killed Coulson and threw his body out the back?”

“No,” he admits, but the image of Ward hurling Coulson from the back of the train almost has him laughing. “He did think they killed him though.”

“My last guy,” Morales says, “thought they hid the body in the coal car. This is an electric train!”

Rand sighs. He’s the highest ranking agent here and no one is envying him the job of submitting the final report on the clean-up to Coulson’s team. “Let’s just get this done so we can get these people home.” He hisses in a breath, stopping their dispersal. “Maybe,” he says slowly, “find a few witnesses who  _don’t_  think a specialist and a biotech are sleeping together and plotting to kill their superior officer?”

So far, that sounds easier said than done.


	43. it actually works

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: It actually works.

The morning after the worst day of Jemma’s life, she wakes up early. Or, more precisely, she stops pretending she can sleep. It’s not that she isn’t tired and aching for it, but her brain will  _not_  shut off. Even in those few brief hours when her body refused to stay awake any longer, her brain kept going over and over and  _over_  her struggle in the lab and all the times she might have infected someone and the fall. God, the fall. She’s had that dream before, everyone has, but she never remembered it before tonight, only knew it was a falling dream because she jumped awake. 

It must drive Ward crazy the number of times it happened tonight, and she’s really not surprised to find him already in the cargo bay when she enters the lab through the back entrance. (She wasn’t about the go through the lounge, not with the windows open and them somewhere over the Atlantic.)

He doesn’t notice her, for which she’s grateful. She’d really rather not deal with sympathy right now. Though Ward’s version was by far the easiest to endure last night. Just his joking - he  _joked_ , two miracles in one day - and then a firm hand on her shoulder when he passed her on his way to bed. The others were worse, with Fitz’s constant hovering and Skye’s hugs every five minutes exactly. Even Coulson and May shot her worried glances every time they passed through the lounge - which was a  _lot_  more than usual. So while she really doubts Ward is going to start hovering like the rest, but she’d still rather not risk it.

She has a lot of work to do. Not on the virus anymore, that’s all been handed off to the techs at the Sandbox, but with the cleanup. The post-cleanup cleanup. SHIELD hazmat teams are incredibly efficient, but they do tend to leave one’s lab in a bit of a shambles. Everything  _looks_  pristine, but the very moment she opens a drawer expecting to find suture kits, she finds- oh Lord, spark plugs? They’ve even cross-contaminated from Fitz’s side. This is going to be a nightmare.

It’s worse than she thinks. A quarter of an hour later finds her gripping the edge of the lab bench, dragging in breaths. Her body aches like never before. It must be a side effect of the virus, possibly her nerve endings haven’t bounced back and it’s resulting in tension in her muscles as she tries to perform manual labor. Hopefully it’s not a lasting effect; she can’t go the rest of her life unable to stand for more than ten minutes together.

The lab doors open and she can just see it’s Ward through her hair. (She forgot to put it up before leaving her bunk and has yet to find her spare hair ties in all this mess.)

“I’m fine,” she says on a sigh, managing to lift one hand off the table to wave him off.

He scoffs and, for the second time in as many days, she hears the distinct sound of the lab doors locking. Considering what happened the last time, it’s no surprise that it has her startling now. Only Ward isn’t standing outside the glass, he’s still on this side with her, and even keying in the code to turn the windows opaque.

“Take off your shirt,” he orders in the same brusque tone he uses when out in the field.

“I beg your pardon?” she asks because she really couldn’t have heard him correctly.

He’s looking through the cupboards for something, but spares a moment to nod in her direction. “Pants too, and get on the table. Face down.”

She gapes at his back, and either he can feel her staring or knows exactly how insane he sounds, because he explains. “That was your first skydive and you didn’t even wear the ‘chute. Your joints are probably killing you.”

He bends down to check the lower cupboards and comes back up a moment later, holding a bottle of oil triumphantly aloft. His face falls when he sees she hasn’t moved.

He sets the oil on the holotable and braces his hands against the edge of it. She really should tell him not to do either of those things, but her voice is as still as the rest of her and she can’t seem to remember how to work it.

“I could get May instead,” he offers. “I’m sure she knows how to give a good massage, but you need one.” She must look skeptical because he smiles in that encouraging way of his and adds, “It actually works, I promise.”

She fiddles with one of the buttons of her shirt. “Could you- could you get a towel from the back? The tables are cold.”

He nods and disappears to grab one while she wonders just what she’s agreed to. Letting Ward _massage_  her? And yet, even as she worries whether the virus has left her mentally incapacitated in some way, she’s making quick work of the buttons on her shirt.

He’s a complete gentleman, laying out the towel for her and then turning his back so she can finish undressing and lay herself down. She considers leaving on her bra in addition to her knickers - he never said either had to come off - but he’ll have an easier time with her back if it’s not in the way. She impulsively adds it to the pile of her clothes and hurriedly lays down with her head cushioned on her arms.

“Ready,” she says. Her head is turned purposefully away from him. After yesterday, there isn’t really a new low for him to see her in, but she’d still rather not see his face at the precise moment he turns around. Instead she listens. 

In the quiet of the lab, even  _his_  footsteps make some noise and she takes some small comfort in that. He’s just as human as the rest of them, even if he was her own personal superhero yesterday. She hears the bottle of oil open, the swipe of his hands against one another, and then his hands are on her back.

They feel much larger there than they look, but that’s where the discrepancies end. She’s seen him dismantle a weapon in a matter of seconds and knows from his file he’s capable of disarming nuclear bombs. Hands that can do that must certainly be dexterous. She wonders if he handles such destructive armaments with the same leashed strength he visits on her muscles.

Sure, steady strokes draw out knots she didn’t even know she had, and one by one her muscles turn to putty under his care. She tries to focus her mind on any one of the many experiments she keeps running at any one time, the problems she sets herself to in her down time, but Ward has done what hours of staring at the ceiling of her bunk couldn’t: he’s managed to quiet her mind. It’s impossible to hold onto a thought that isn’t his warm skin against hers and she finds herself drifting off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.


	44. "you don't need to be honest"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: You don't need to be honest with me.

Grant allows himself exactly seven minutes to feel warm and dry and clean, seven minutes for his skin to linger against Simmons’ and to indulge in the memory of being inside her before he puts his good guy Grant Ward face back on and tenses up. Literally. She’s curled into his side, half on top of him like maybe she’s thinking of going another round, and he tightens up like the turd Maria Hill thinks he is.

He hisses in a breath and moves carefully out from under her, disturbing her as little as possible even though this entire act is specifically designed to do just that. And then he just sits on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he grounds out. “That was-” He can hear her move to look at him, so he shakes his head in shame.

He knows there’s nothing to feel bad for, but good guy Grant Ward is just the sort of reluctant white knight who would feel like he took advantage of his teammate by sleeping with her right after rescuing her from certain death. Frankly, Grant’s pretty sure he deserved sex - not necessarily with Simmons, but with  _some_ one after that rescue. While she was working hard on a cure, he was working hard on projecting preemptive remorse for having to throw her out of the plane. But then she went and did that herself and he had to go after her.  _And_  she had to find a cure before doing it, so he really had to save her. 

If she hadn’t been so obviously eager for a little  _thank God we’re alive_  sex, he would’ve found some random agent on the base to do it with. She was though, and he’s glad for it because she definitely lives up to her reputation. 

He’s actually disappointed this is gonna have to be the only time, which is what this little play is all about. If he feels guilty, she’ll feel guilty for  _making_  him guilty, that’s just the kind of person Simmons is. She’ll never dare bring up the subject again and she’ll feel indebted to him, more than she would’ve been simply for him doing his job by saving her.

She lets out a small sigh behind him. “Well, you should be.”

He’s lucky she follows it up by climbing out of bed herself or his shocked about-face would give him away. She’s busy grabbing her clothes up off the floor, giving him time to school his features into … _what_? He’s really not sure how to play this now. Contrition, maybe? That seems safe, so he puts on the puppy face.

She finally finds her underwear under a chair in the corner and stalks back to the bed to dump the rest while she pulls them on. “Really,” she says in that same tone of voice she used when he tried to hide the graze he got in Peru, “you don’t have to be honest with me, but please don’t insult my intelligence by  _lying_. I’m well aware of the sort of man you are.”

He winces and doesn’t even have to fake it. If that’s what she thinks of him, his cover is definitely failing. “Simmons,” he says, placating, “I don’t know what you’ve heard or what kind of guy you think I am, but-”

“I  _think_  you’re the kind of guy who left Agent Rawlins unable to sit properly for two days, which - in case you were under the impression I slept with you out of some sense of mortality or debt - is the actual reason we’re here right now.” She tosses her hair over her shoulders to put on her bra - which he feels is just cruel, since it gives him a great view of what he’s not allowed to touch anymore - and her eyes trail over him in a way that threatens to have him hard all over again. “I’m just glad I had the chance to get in before May finally took pity on your  _crush_.” She actually laughs on that last word, and it’s so unlike Simmons to laugh at someone’s pain that he almost forgets the most important part of that little speech.

It’s not surprising that he’d have a reputation or that she’d sleep with him just because of it. Simmons leads a healthy sex life and Fitz is far from the only SciOps agent with a hopeless infatuation - just one of the few who didn’t get to sleep with her beforehand. It’s not even really surprising that she’d trade stories with another agent. The Ops women are notoriously chatty about that sort of thing, to the point that there are even rumors of a secret rating scale; who’s to say the SciOps women aren’t the same. 

What’s surprising is  _who_.

“ _Kate_  Rawlins?” he asks.

She smiles and it’s just similar enough to the one she gave Skye last week when she finally pronounced “alkalinization” correctly as to be insulting now.

Kate’s a SHIELD agent, yeah, but she works almost exclusively out of HYDRA bases. Technically they all  _belong_  to SHIELD, but they’re staffed entirely by loyal HYDRA agents. Kate’s specialty is keeping those bases secure from prying SHIELD eyes. So how the hell would she meet Simmons?

There’s only one way that makes sense, but it also makes absolutely zero sense.

Simmons comes around the bed to wrap her arms around his neck. His hands go instinctively to her hips and he’s disappointed to find she’s finished dressing while he’s been trying to puzzle her out.

“Thanks for the afternoon,” she says, “and the saving me, but if your play to get Coulson’s miracle cure stops me from getting it, I’m gonna brush up on my surgical skills by using you as a human Operation board. Understood?”

He gives a faint nod, more because it’s what she expects than because he means it, and is rewarded with a quick kiss.

“Hail HYDRA,” she says with a smile and flounces out of the room like she didn’t just almost die a few hours ago.

Grant stays where he is for several long seconds before moving to grab his own clothes. He is gonna make Garrett pay  _so much_  for letting him get blindsided like this.


	45. "how's that a good idea?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "How's that a good idea?"
> 
> Warning: dub-con

He looks around at the dark, dusty walls of the Victorian mansion - it used to be beautiful once, but decades of neglect have ended that - and then at the others. All of them are in desperate need of baths after an hour spent marching around this dump. Skye’s hair is practically white from all the cobwebs stuck in it. Fitz is cursing under his breath as he tries to pry even _more_ cobwebs off one of the Golden Retrievers. Simmons’ cheeks are smudged with dirt like someone left fingerprints there.

“I think,” he says slowly, “we should split up.”

“What!” Fitz demands.

“How’s  _that_  a good idea?” Skye yells.

Over her, Fitz continues. “We’re in a  _haunted mansion_ , if you haven’t noticed, Ward. Splitting up is the  _last_  thing we should be doing.”

That gets a fight going because even though Simmons was in the room when Fitz supposedly saw an ethereal woman walk through a wall, she stoutly denies seeing any such thing and refuses to entertain the idea this place might be haunted.

Skye easily side-steps around their argument so she can be heard when she asks, “Have you ever  _seen_  a horror movie?”

He rolls his eyes. “All right.  **Quiet!** ” The sound echoes so badly in the ancient hallway that some dust drifts down from the ceiling. “Our priority is finding May and Coulson, and that’s more easily accomplished if we split up. Teams of two,” he continues over the protests, his tone shutting them down instantly. “Skye, you’re with Fitz on the ground floor. Simmons is with me up here. Keep to the perimeter of the house, one of you in sight of a window at all times. The second someone finds them, if there’s still comm interference, you take them outside and send up a flare. Got it?”

“And when the ghosts attack us to make us part of their unearthly freak show family of the dead?” Skye asks dryly.

“You scream. Loudly.” That doesn’t seem to placate either her or Fitz, so he adds, “Even if there  _are_ ghosts-” he holds up a hand to stop the protests he knows are coming - “they aren’t exactly expecting SHIELD agents. They’re probably used to youtube ghost hunters who build knockoff Ghostbusters weapons when they’re not making drinks at Starbucks. I think we can handle it.”

Skye rolls her eyes, still unimpressed, but it gets her and Fitz moving towards the stairs. The others watch until they’re gone before turning for the room at the far end of the hallway. He settles a calming hand over Simmons’ back, knowing what she’s about to say. 

“I can’t believe you said that,” she grouses. “You’re  _encouraging_  them.”

He chuckles. “No, I think you’re the one who did that.”

“Oh, don’t give me that ‘the lady doth protest too much’ line. It’s not true and you know it. People are practical creatures.”

He smiles fondly at her as he swings open the door ahead of them. The second they’re inside, he closes it firmly and spins her around to pin her against it. Her face is already flushed, her pupils gone wide in anticipation.

“What I meant,” he says roughly, “is letting that young man see you.”

She squirms. “I needed to get his attention off this one or he’d have seen me taking her. Besides, it was right next to the window; I easily could’ve been a moonbeam.  _You_  are giving them ideas by indulging them.”

“Ideas that will keep them jumping at shadows for hours and the others busy haunting  _them_  instead of interrupting  _us_.” He runs his thumb over the mark on her cheek and her breath hitches. “It’s been years since I touched you.”

She hums, her hands moving under his shirt to slide over the bare skin beneath. “I think this body is attracted to yours. I chose her because she looks the most like me of any of them, but…”

He nods against her cheek on his way to pressing a suckling kiss at the hinge of her jaw. “Yes, mine too.” He can’t be sure whether they’ve actually been together or not, but the spirit lying only mostly dormant beneath his consciousness has definitely thought of touching Simmons’ body like this before. That will make things easier. The living are always so much less trouble to hold onto when they’re enjoying themselves.


	46. where demons play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from Halsey's "Coming Down"

Half the team is headed upstairs to change. Fitz’s newest gadget worked beautifully, but it did have the nasty side effect of setting off the building’s sprinkler system. Jemma was spared the worst of it and has more or less dried off by now. The dress she wore for the undercover aspect of the mission has the wonderful benefit of drying more easily than Coulson’s suit or May’s tactical gear.

“Briefing in the lab in ten minutes,” Coulson says, managing to sound calm and in control despite the sloshing that accompanies his every step. “I want everything you’ve got on those robots.”

Fitz manages a grunt of understanding and Jemma has to hold back a laugh. It’s been killing him this whole mission that the others persist in calling the weapons Prometheus Industries is manufacturing “robots.”

“You can correct him at the briefing,” she says softly as they reach the lab.

“I’ve been _trying_ ,” Fitz says heavily.

“Hey.” Skye knocks on the lab window despite the countless times she’s been told not to. “Do we have any rice upstairs?” She’s holding her poor, sodden laptop in her palms.

Fitz winces in sympathy and turns to Jemma. “How about the-”

“Right,” she says. “I’ll get it. You have a briefing to prepare for.”

Fitz sets to work uploading the data he retrieved (lucky Fitz was in the van outside the whole time) and explains to Skye that they’ve got an entire vat of a substance far better than rice for drying out electronics. It’s also very good at dehydrating and potentially killing any person foolish enough to touch it barehanded, which is why Jemma stops to grab a pair of heavy duty gloves on her way out.

The lights, which are supposed to come on automatically when she enters the cargo hold, stay dark. It’s been an ongoing problem which Coulson swears will be fixed the moment they land at an actual SHIELD base - something they haven’t done in nearly two months. Rather than start banging on the walls (the only solution that works even fifty percent of the time) Jemma leaves the door open behind her. The spare light streaming in from the lab is plenty to find what she’s looking for.

Not wanting to trip over her own two feet, she goes slow, feeling her way along the narrow hallway and around the corner. The metal drum should be on the bottom shelf at the very end. She taps it with the heel of her shoe to ensure it’s precisely where she thinks it is and begins fiddling with the gloves. Before she can get the first open, a strong arm wraps around her shoulders, pulling her against a very hard, very solid chest.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?” a low, gravelly voice asks. The next moment she’s spun around, into the alcove next to the shelving unit. Her back slams against the wall. The lights flicker briefly, giving her a clear view of Grant looming over her. When they go out again, the sudden shift leaves her more blind than before.

She’s not entirely sure what’s gotten into him, but she gets the feeling it’s not good. She knows, despite his firm denials, that he never fully recovered from his encounter with the berserker staff.

“Whatever I’ve done,” she says, trying to keep her voice level, “I am sorry.” It wasn’t her fault Fitz’s device got them all sopping wet, but pointing that out won’t do her any favors - especially if he’s angry about something else entirely.

He laughs roughly and the sound comes from below her instead of above her. “Not yet, but you will be.” She has only a moment to wonder at what he means and at the odd angle of his voice before her skirt lifts up and he kisses her just above her knee, his lips nipping gently at her skin.

“ _Grant_ ,” she gasps, horrified. She’s really not sure if it’s at his actions or the immediate flood of desire she feels. They agreed when they took this mission that there would be no outward displays of affection. No displays, _period_. They cannot appear to be aligned in any way in case one of them is exposed. It’s the safest option for the both of them, but it’s also incredibly frustrating.

“You had to wear a fucking skirt,” he says into her skin. He’s moving higher, nuzzling and biting his way up. One of his hands has already slipped under the elastic of her knickers and is cupping her cheek. The other is kneading the back of her calf.

She should tell him to stop. He _needs_ to stop. Anyone could come around that corner at any moment. Skye and Fitz are still in the lab. The door is open for Christ’s sake!

Of all those very salient points, all she manages is a throaty, “The door!” She knows that if she asked, he would stop in a heartbeat. He would slip back into that damned agent of SHIELD persona he wears like a second skin and never revisit this again. That’s probably why she doesn’t ask.

She can feel the sharp edge of his grin. “I know.”

Oh, he is a _scoundrel_. And she would call him exactly that if she were sure she could do it at any sort of clandestine volume, but that is largely impossible at the moment what with him pulling her knickers down and burying his face between her legs.

She barely avoids knocking boxes of medical supplies off the shelf. Her hand lands around the vertical bar at its front and she holds on for dear life. The fingers of her other hand dig into his hair as her knee grips tightly at his shoulder, pulling him closer. Her knickers didn’t quite survive being removed, which she expected honestly. This is the thirty-eighth pair he’s torn since they met and yes, he will be paying for each and every one of them at some point.

He doesn’t seem at all daunted by her weight. He is a wonder, she’s always thought so, somehow managing to keep her steady against the wall while his mouth and tongue do the most incredible things to her. She whimpers, struggling to keep quiet.

“You taste amazing,” he says. Or she thinks he says. It’s a little muffled what with her cunt in his mouth, but he says it every time he performs this particular act on her. She can’t say she believes him, but it’s sweet of him to say and the vibration from his voice makes her nerves sing.

He shifts his hold on her so he can more easily slip one of his fingers between her folds. Her shoulders press higher into the wall as he adjusts his angle. The pain is a sharp contrast to the pleasure rolling out from every point of contact between them. Her hand leaves his hair to slap over her mouth, stifling a cry as her body pulses.

He is a terrible, _horrible_ man, but he’s at least kind enough to wait while she comes down from her orgasm. He gently sets her on her feet, his hands trailing lightning up her sides as he stands, making sure she’s steady.

“You’re a monster,” she says, her breathing still heavy.

“Your monster.” He presses the gloves - she doesn’t even remember dropping them - into her hands and steps away. His mask slots cleanly back into place. “Briefing’s starting,” he says and disappears.

She hates this. She hates _him_. All she wants is for this stupid assignment to be over so they can both go back to their normal lives. Sleeping with each other on the sly while SHIELD looked the other way probably wasn’t healthy (in more ways than one), but at least it wasn’t maddening.

She grabs the dehydrating agent and, when she reaches the lab, Grant is in the middle of brushing off Skye’s teasing about taking time to fix his hair. How he made it upstairs and back down before her, Jemma has no idea, but his hair really does look perfect despite the mess she must have made of it.

“Ward?” Jemma asks before Coulson can get the meeting going. “Would you mind getting me the bowl from that shelf up there?”

He’s happy to get away from Skye and, more likely than not, thinks this is her way of repaying him for his little stunt. When he turns back around, she makes certain she’s bent over, pulling a second, smaller bowl from beneath the counter. She’s not low enough to risk showing off her lack of undergarments, but it’s a near thing.

When she turns to face him, thanking him for his help, she gets the rare privilege of seeing that mask of his crack, just a little. It’s well worth it. Not that this will be the last bit of repayment she exacts from him. She has plans. A great many of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is a follow-up to this one.


	47. where demons play (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like the title implies, this takes place in the same universe as the previous chapter, but it's not the end of the world if you read one without the other.
> 
> Prompt: Things you said when I wasn't there.

The ride back to the Bus is more than a little tense. It doesn’t help that Fitz turns around every two seconds to make sure the other van is still following. Every time he does it, the driver’s hand twitches.

“Calm down,” Grant says, meaning it for the both of them.

“Yeah, I don’t think I will,” Fitz says, reluctantly dragging his eyes face front once more. “Not until I know Simmons hasn’t been hurt.”

“She won’t be.”

“So you say, but what about  _them_? These HYDRA blokes - who’s to say they won’t take liberties?”

Grant’s mouth twists in amused confusion. The way Fitz says it, it’s almost like he doesn’t think Grant is “one of these HYDRA blokes.”

“You shouldn’t have left her alone with them,” Fitz says softly and turns again. The driver looks about ready to shoot him.

“It’s a two minute ride,” Grant says, “mostly taken up by the getting in and out of the vans. I think she’ll make it out okay.” And thank God, they’re pulling up to the Bus. “Did you tell her?”

Fitz actually takes his eyes off the back window to look at Grant.

“That you’ve got feelings for her.”

Fitz stiffens, his eyes darting towards the driver like he can’t believe Grant would just  _say that_  in front of a HYDRA agent. Grant waits patiently while they park and Fitz really must think he’s still on their side because he says, “Yeah.”

“And?” They’re stopped, ready to get out, but nobody’s moving until Grant does - and he wants his answer. “What’d she say?”

Fitz shrugs awkwardly. “Said it was a surprise-”

Grant scoffs and even the driver rolls his eyes in the mirror.

“Said she needed some time to think about things.”

Grant turns that over for a moment. 

“Women,” the driver mutters. Not the most insightful of statements, but it fits.

“Yeah,” Grant says and climbs out. “Take Fitz to the Cage.” Garrett’ll want to interrogate him once they’re off the ground. Grant turns to the other van, which is already emptying. “Simmons can start helping Raina with the GH-325.” Fitz, big surprise, has a problem with that.

He fights and yells until Simmons tells him to  _shut up already_. Well, she doesn’t say it quite like that, but Grant thinks his way would’ve gotten the point across a lot better than her big doe eyes and pleas to be careful with his own life.

“Be  _nice_ ,” Grant orders when he catches sight of the tight grip one of the agents has on her arm. He’d just as soon stay down here, but he’s gotta make sure Fitz doesn’t try anything.

It’s a good thing he goes too, since Fitz nearly has to be knocked out to keep him in line. Grant only manages to avoid it by pointing out that he can’t exactly protect Simmons if he’s up here trying to deal with Fitz. That has the guy walking into the Cage of his own free will and frees Grant up to head down to the lab. 

They’re already in the air by that point and the scientists are busy at work. Raina’s standing to one side, giving Simmons that knowing smile of hers. She shoots Grant a look when he enters, one that clearly says they’ve hit the mother load nabbing Simmons. 

Grant ignores her and steps right up behind Jemma, pressing his chest to her back. “Took you long enough.”

Jemma doesn’t even flinch. “Says the man who  _left me behind_. Twice.”

“Orders.” Grant spares Raina a glance and isn’t even a little disappointed by the shock he sees there.

Jemma lets out an unimpressed breath. “You have no one to blame but yourself. And I’m busy, so you can take your libido elsewhere.” She actually tries to wave him off. 

The dismissive motion coupled with the conversation from the van, still brimming in his brain, is not a good combination. He grips her hips tight and drags her back with him, allowing just enough space between them and the lab bench so he can spin her around and then he pins her right back against it.

“You told Fitz you had to  _think about things_?” he asks darkly.

She smiles and pats his cheek a little harder than necessary. With the injuries he’s suffered the last few days, it stings. “I told Fitz what I needed to, Mr. I-slept-with-May-and-kissed-Skye.”

He sighs. He knew that was gonna come back to haunt him. She bucks her hips - and not in the fun way.

“Let me work,” she orders, turning back to it once he gives her room.

“We’re not done,” he promises, but it’s a weak one and they both know it. She hums absently, already absorbed - and he can’t just let that  _go_ , so he crowds her again. He can feel her annoyance in every line of her body - and  _God_ , it’s good to have her pressed up against him again, even if she is pissed - but it turns to tension when he speaks, low words whispered directly in her ear. “I’ve been dreaming for months of fucking you on that table.” He gives her ass a firm squeeze. “Later tonight we’re gonna do something about that.”

“Are we?” she asks a little breathlessly.

“Uh huh.” He backs up one purposeful step and is rewarded with the sight of her gripping the edge of the table to keep upright. His work done - or at least prologued - he leaves, shooting Raina a wink on the way out. He thinks he’ll join Garrett in interrogating Fitz to pass the time, might be fun.


	48. lists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For wssummer's theme: dictionary

“Sir?” Markham asks from the doorway.

In response, Grant leans back, holding up a ratty tennis ball for him to see. “Look at this. We’re in the middle of a war and Coulson let Fitz get a  _dog_.”

“Are you sure he  _let_  him?” Markham is Grant’s most trusted lieutenant and has heard more about the team than any of the others. “He could’ve asked forgiveness instead of permission.”

Grant nods and tosses the ball amid the rest of the junk he’s unearthed from Fitz’s drawers and under the bed. He spins in place on the floor and rests his arms on his knees, waiting patiently for Markham to get to whatever message was important enough to bring him down here. Until Grant’s sure there are no lingering booby-traps or bombs waiting on Coulson’s signal, the jammers will keep running, and that means no comms for his people either.

“We’ve got a couple guards and a scientist.”

“No one else?” Grant asks, his eyes drifting to a framed picture of the team hanging on the wall. It’s from one of their missions prior to HYDRA’s uprising and Grant has been conspicuously cropped out.

“No one who survived,” Markham says. “We haven’t ID’d any as your VIPs yet.” If that’s a gentle tone in Markham’s voice, Grant chooses to ignore it.

It’s not surprising, after the last invasion this place saw ended with Coulson coming to  _him_  for help, he’s gotta know better than to let his best people be separated.

Grant climbs to his feet a little less smoothly than he’d like. Between the tac vest (he’s not stupid enough to take it off until they’re sure they’ve got this place secure) and the fight with Morse, he’s not at his most graceful. Worse, it shows. Markham actually steps forward like he thinks Grant might need  _help_.

Grant steps right past him and out the door, forcing Markham to move aside or get run over. “Send word to Evie to start sending in our scientists, just a few for now. I want everything of value moved to HQ.” He turns the corner, done with this hallway, and straight into the first room in the next. 

It’s immediately obvious that it belongs to Simmons. He recognizes the yellow comforter, and the carefully aligned bookshelf (and its messy overflow onto the floor) can only be hers. 

Markham’s gone, left behind to follow orders, leaving Grant free to smile as he takes in the mural wrapped around one corner. This is a new room, probably built to take in the influx of agents, and there’s half of the old SSR eagle cut through by a new, plaster wall. It’s joined with half of the SHIELD eagle there. He has to wonder if that new half was painted before or after her time in HYDRA. 

Probably drove her crazy having to see that damn octopus everyday.

He fingers a stack of notes on her desk. He doesn’t expect to be able to understand anything there, but he can certainly understand the open notebook shoved to one side. The first page is a list of names, several crossed off, a few with great prejudice. He huffs out a laugh. Apparently he’s not the only one on her hit list.

It’s not really a surprise. Simmons was obviously wound a little tight last time he saw her - she never would’ve let him get away with dragging her onto that gurney if she hadn’t been desperate for a little  _un_ winding - and he doubts the recent uptick in HYDRA activities has helped much. He should probably feel guilty for that, he thinks as he sees a line of notes that drifts off like she was falling asleep while writing, but he doesn’t.

In other rooms he’s found shredded toys in dark corners and treats buried under clothes, but as he searches the closet and under the bed, he finds none of that. Murderous and not a fan of the dog, she must be a lot of fun these days.

He drops all at once onto the bed and immediately curses as his head strikes a hard corner. He tears the pillow away and finds a book hidden there. For half a tick he thinks it might be a diary and laughs at the idea. There are post-it tabs hanging out all over and he flips to one without looking at the cover. If he’d taken the second to check what the book was, he might not be so confused by what he sees. 

> **Virginia**  (Latin) “in a pristine state”

On the narrow post-it next to the listing, Simmons’ precise handwriting reads, “P: Q.E. C: Harry Potter.” There are similar comments on other post-its. Beside Albert, “P: Grandfather C: Einstein.” And next to Nicholas, “P: Copernicus C: Christmas.” When he nears the end of the book, he finds that every page in the W’s has a tab pasted askew inside, where they won’t be seen when the book’s closed. Each and every one has a bold “NO” etched onto it. It doesn’t escape his notice that on the page with Ward, the post-it is perfectly placed to cover the name.

He hefts the book in his hand as he sits up on the edge of the bed. It’s possible she’s just doing it because she hates him on principle, but there really wasn’t time for a condom in that Arctic base. It could be…

“Hey!” he calls, knowing Markham will have left at least one man behind in case he needed to send a message along. Two heads poke around the edges of the door.

“Sir!” they say in unison.

Grant grabs for the notebook on the desk, noticing for the first time that what he thought was a hit list has only first names. “Everything Simmons has worked on in the last five months - every file she’s even touched - I want them sent to my private database.” He rises slowly off the bed. “And tell the recovery team I want everything in this room moved to our main base. Not a scratch on any of it.”

The grunts jump to attention as he passes them by, the two books held firmly at his side. He’s still got a few more rooms to rifle through, and by the time he’s done with that, his people should have the files he asked for parsed out. If he finds what he thinks he will, and if the dates line up, he’ll have a lot of work to do, starting with making some notes of his own alongside Simmons’ and getting her moved into his most secure base. Can’t have SHIELD rescuing the mother of his child away from him.


	49. private property

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For wssummer: stars

As what feels to be the entire Rose Bowl Parade - complete with high school marching bands - tramples through her head, Jemma consoles herself with the knowledge that she was  _right_. They were not  _enchanted_  by Thor’s wayward brother, they were drugged. And heavily too. 

She’s practically hanging off the edge of the bed - not hers, likely she’s in a hotel room from the blank slate quality to the place - and climbs off it to stagger ( _slowly_ ) towards the door she hopes leads to the loo. She ignores her nakedness for the moment, much more concerned with simply waking up, and smacks her lips - whatever they were given, it results in terrible dry mouth. She winces as she passes the dresser - her reflection is  _not_  kind to her this morning. Not surprising given how little she can remember of the night before.

She remembers Loki of course, appearing in the midst of a stand-off with HYDRA. He didn’t care one whit for the battle, was rather more concerned with trading quips with Coulson, and then he threw down a gas bomb of some sort and everything started going fuzzy and slanted and spinning. She grips the doorway tightly, willing her stomach to settle. 

Once she’s sure she’s not going to have the unfortunate opportunity to get reacquainted with any food she may have eaten during her lost time, she heads straight for the loo, one hand going out towards the sink along the way to ensure she doesn’t keel over.

She remembers the time just after the bomb went off as well. The confusion and worry, Coulson’s disappearance, the signs of something  _not right_  in everyone there - from May dropping her gun in the midst of danger to a HYDRA agent falling to his back and laughing uncontrollably. Jemma herself felt light, unfettered, like she’d just had a mouthful of laughing gas. A feeling that only increased after the initial exposure.

“ _Bloody hell!_ ” she yells, drawn out of her memories by a sharp pain in her rear as she attempts to sit. She searches the toilet seat for a tac or signs of blood, but there isn’t any. She hurries to the mirror, turning her back to see if something got stuck.

And something certainly has. The HYDRA logo appears to be leering at her from the curve of her left buttocks. She’s so shocked to find herself tattooed - with  _this_  tattoo - that she nearly misses the words ringing the damn thing. She steps closer to the mirror, trying to make it out backwards and over her shoulder.

“‘Property of  _Grant Ward_ ”?!” she reads, voice rising with every word. “‘ _If lost please return_ ’?!”

A shadow looms in the doorway. Somehow she is unsurprised to see Ward, naked as she is and smirking at her humorlessly. He angles the shoulder not resting on the doorjamb towards her. “I suppose I have you to blame for this then?”

It’s an eagle, a bloody SHIELD eagle with tiny stars around it and her own name written underneath in handwriting that looks suspiciously like the looping scrawl she used in her early teen years. 

Rather than answer him, she turns back over her shoulder to the mirror. This time she notices a dark mark half-hidden at the curve of her neck. In any other circumstances she might call it a love bite. There’s a tightness between her thighs when she presses two fingers to the bruise.

“Want to help me kill an Asgardian?” she hears herself asking.

Ward barks out a laugh. “Hell yeah.”


	50. curiosity (killed the cat)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No prompt, just a random little thing.

Grant’s just come out of the shower (his third since coming back to his senses and definitely not his last), when Simmons finds him. He’s been expecting it, what with her being acting medic and all. There are procedures that have to be followed in situations like this (and yeah, SHIELD definitely has a “violated by extraterrestrial” procedure), and he’s actually grateful she let him skate by this long. He does wish it could’ve waited until the bitch was on another planet though.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, shaking out his sodden shirt. It fell off the counter in there and he dripped on it too much to put it back on. “I’ll be down in the lab once I get another-” He cuts off, unsure just what’s happening.

She’s stepped right up into his space, close as she gets when she’s tending his injuries down in the lab.

“Simmons?” he asks.

The way she’s looking at him… Well, not at  _him_  really. She’s looking at his chest. Suddenly her fingertips are ghosting over his skin, following the length of a cut he got in Belfast five months ago. His breath catches at the contact and his muscles contract inward. Her mouth curves in a faint smile.

“You’re always protecting us,” she says softly and he can feel her breath against his shower-cooled skin. “Always putting yourself between us and danger, taking the brunt of it for our sakes.”

She lifts her eyes to his finally. There’s heat there, and longing. His heart pounds in his ears and other places. Just a few minutes ago he was thinking it’d be a  _while_  before he was attracted to a woman again. He was wrong, and proven wrong by  _Simmons_  of all people. He would’ve guessed Skye, if anyone. Maybe May - she was a good fuck, for all she was a job. But  _Simmons_? 

She doesn’t give him time to wonder over it. She moves forward and he follows on instinct. She’s a textbook overachiever, refusing to accept anything less than excellence from herself in any undertaking, so it’s not really a surprise that she’s a fantastic kisser.

His shirt hits the floor with an audible smack as her feather-light fingers become hard and insistent, traveling over his chest. It’s remarkably different from the feel of her gloved hands down in the lab and has him reaching for her hips. She pushes him back into the wall, moving against his hands in a clear request to be lifted up.

He wants to. He wants to take her into the lounge and bury himself inside her right there on the couch just because he can. Because it’d be  _his choice_. But that’s not really fair to Simmons - not that he has any idea what she’s even thinking with this.

Before he can puzzle it out - which is  _very_  difficult to do what with the way her tongue is moving in his mouth and her hands are trailing fire over his stomach in between attempts at opening his belt and jeans - they’re interrupted.

“Oi!” Fitz yells.

Grant freezes, reminding himself of his very important  _cover_. He’ll need to find a reasonable excuse for this or all the hard work he’s done gaining Fitz’s good favor might be undone.

Simmons doesn’t have any of his trouble. She lets out a disgruntled sigh and - there’s really no other word for it -  _drapes_  herself against him as she turns to Fitz. “Go away. Just because you were too  _boring_ -”

“She’s drugged,” Fitz says to Grant. “Or something. I don’t really know. She touched something Asgardian in the lab, probably dropped by Lorelei.” The disgust in his voice when he says the name is a little comforting. Whatever else Fitz feels, he’s still pissed on Grant’s behalf.

More importantly, Grant forces his hands to push Simmons’ hips away instead of pulling her closer the way he wants. She whines, actually lets out a pathetic little mewl and gives him a pout that would melt a lesser man’s heart. His fingers twitch, but he remains firm.

“And she’s been … like this?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah,” Fitz chuckles. “She jumped me too. Got all sorts of angry when I tried to shoot her down.”

Yeah, Grant can see that. Simmons’ lust is hardening into something dangerous right before his eyes. He’d really rather not have to risk hurting her if she fights him, so he trails his knuckles down her cheek to keep her docile. She smiles and leans into his touch. Her hip shifts under his hand in a clear invitation.

“Get Coulson,” he says to Fitz. Just getting her away from whatever she touched obviously isn’t helping any, so they’ll have to talk to Sif in the Cage, and for that they’ll need permission. He just hopes they don’t also have to talk to the Cage’s  _other_  occupant.

Fitz scampers off and Simmons rolls her hips under his hand. She tries tempting him closer with lingering touches, but he’s not going for it. Even though he  _really_  wants to.

“You kissed Fitz?” he asks, hoping to divert her thoughts. And his, if he’s honest. He’s not exactly happy to hear he’s second on her list. Would she have gone for Coulson if he’d crossed her path before she reached Grant?

“I liked kissing you more,” she says in a low, throaty tone that has his cock twitching. 

She’s given up on tempting him closer with touch and has moved on to unbuttoning her blouse. He gets a glimpse of black between her breasts and catches her wrists before she can reveal more.

Her teeth drag at her lower lip. “Are you going to  _restrain me_ , Agent Ward?”

That nearly breaks him; it would if not for the title she attaches to his name. Lorelei did that too. Coming from her it was mocking, a reminder that he was never really an agent of SHIELD and, even if he had been, he was hers now besides.

Whatever has Simmons doing this, it’s not real. She’s probably gonna wake up from this feeling as bad - _worse_  even - than he did when he was freed from Lorelei. He’s not gonna add to that if he can help it.

“Come on,” he says, putting on an easy smile and tugging her along behind him.

She follows readily, eager for whatever he has planned. He takes them to her bunk, and pulls her around to be framed in the open doorway. She smiles coyly, her eyes going to the bed. He slides the door quickly shut before she can turn back around.

The bunks aren’t really meant to be locked - from inside or out for safety reasons - but there’s a failsafe just in case it’s necessary. Even impaired it won’t take her long to break through the codes, but it should be enough time for him to duck into his bunk for an ICER. 

The pistol he brings along with it isn’t for Simmons. It might not do a damn bit of good, but he’ll feel better if he can empty the mag into Lorelei’s torso.


	51. make death find you alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma takes it upon herself to bring down a serial killer.

This is a bad idea, but then that’s nothing new. She’s out here hunting down a serial killer without backup - not that she’d even know how to go about getting backup, seeing as she’s not a cop, she’s only a lowly forensics analyst. But she’s also the killer’s type! Which is why this particular moment is such an atrocious idea. 

She’s backed into a dark corner of the club with a very handsome stranger’s mouth on hers. Oh!  _Not_  on hers. Now it’s moving along her jaw towards her ear and oh  _oh_. That is very nice.

“Thought you’d like that,” he chuckles and the sound reaches her toes.

She bites her lip to keep any more wayward thoughts from slipping out. 

The stranger is - when he’s not bent over her neck, leaving what will surely be some impressive hickies tomorrow - roughly six-two. The killer is at least six-one. He’s also very strong, as evidenced by the well-muscled arms that are wrapped around her waist, strong enough surely to break a neck during a particularly vicious strangulation. 

Those arms push her gently but firmly around a corner and he says, “Come on.” It takes her at least three steps to realize the sound of the pulsing music has died down and the air is cooler than it was amid the press of bodies.

She opens her eyes, sees the scar on his cheek, paler in the brighter light of the hallway. He’s maneuvering her to an exit.

Oh, this is bad. Very bad. Why did she ever think luring out a serial killer would be a good idea? And why didn’t she think the reason he’s been able to lure in so many victims might be that he is almost unfairly attractive? And an accomplished kisser. She has no idea how he’s doing it but he’s doing a truly impressive job of distracting her while he guides her to certain death.

But it’s  _not_  certain. Not this time. She has a syringe filled with a powerful tranquilizer in her purse, alongside the pistol May bought her last year, just in case. And that reminds Jemma why she’s here at all. The last time she saw May, she was with must have been half the precinct, watching over Bobbi. Bobbi, who was shot by this- this  _bastard_  just twenty-four hours ago. Bobbi, who made Jemma promise she’d keep Hunter from doing anything rash. 

Well, Jemma intends on keeping that promise, though likely not at all in the way Bobbi expected. She’s precisely this madman’s type and she intends on bringing him to justice. She just needs an opening.

They’re coming up on a door now and Jemma extracts her hand from beneath the killer’s shirt - how it ended up there, she’ll never be able to say - to reach for her purse at her hip. The zipper comes undone easily and she reaches inside to ready herself. He’ll be distracted when he opens the door and then she’ll strike. A quick injection, a call to Captain Coulson, and this will all be over.

Her heart beats wildly in her ears in a strange mix of arousal and fear. It’s oddly thrilling.

She thumbs the cap off the syringe, not wanting to be slowed down at all when the time comes. Fifty milliliters will be more than enough to knock a grown man of his size out. It might take a few seconds, but he won’t be able to get far in that time.

His hands move to her upper arms, likely to get a better grip to hold her where he wants her. He probably has a car waiting just outside, some sort of ugly van to shove her into before he takes her to whatever house of horrors he uses to hold his victims. 

She fears for half a second that he’ll notice she’s gone cold in his arms, but she needn’t have. He spins her around to pin her against the door so suddenly that the air rushes out of her. Her arm strikes the bar on the door, but it doesn’t open under the pressure and her fingers open as pain reverberates down through her joints. 

His body is firm against her back and his head rests firmly against hers. One of those sharp cheekbones she was admiring earlier feels almost like it’s cutting into her skin. “How the hell stupid are you?” he growls, all his easy seduction gone.

“Well at least I’m not a-  _ah!_ ” She almost thinks he’s taken her syringe, but there’s no way with her hand still inside her purse. She can feel whatever drug he’s using under her skin. It’s cold and hurts where it pools before spreading out. 

She knows the science. She has a very limited amount of time before the drug begins affecting her and leaves her incapable of escaping. She reaches deeper in her purse, her fingers grasping along the edge of the pistol but unable to grasp it. Her vision’s already starting to blur and her extremities are going numb.

“Don’t fight it,” he says while he brushes her hair back from her face. 

His hold on her is gentler now; no point in making a scene when she can’t fight back. And she  _can’t_. Sleep is clawing at her, dragging her down and it’s so, so easy to lean back into his warm support. 

His arms wrap around her waist from behind and cold air hits her as his shoulder pushes the door open. She wastes precious seconds wondering how he managed it before she sees what is not a van, but a dark sports car opening up ahead of her. Much less conspicuous while the police are hunting for a crazed killer. 

And that is her last thought before sleep finally takes her completely.


	52. the enemy you know

In retrospect, she should’ve just gone back to bed. Of course, if she _had_ ignored her better nature and left Ward to suffer with his stitches for another day, she still would’ve ended up locked in a cell. There was really no winning on that front.

“Agent Simmons, this is _completely_ out of line,” Weaver says sternly, sounding more like her teacher than her friend. “Drop this barrier.”

Jemma’s hands do not move any nearer the controls on her lap. She didn’t lower the barrier when a dozen heavily armed men stormed the Vault, she certainly won’t lower it now.

“I always thought the head of SciTech would be smart; learn something new every day, I guess.” Ward punctuates his statement with a shrug that somehow ends with his arm pressing even closer to hers. They’re seated sideways on his bed, their backs to the wall as they watch the assembled agents mill about outside. She considered sitting on the floor instead at first, but as this seems to be shaping up to be a long standoff and the temperature in this room has been in the sixties for eight months (she raised it almost immediately after entering), she’d rather have the bed than the freezing concrete, even if the bed does mean she has to sit next to Ward.

The door at the top of the stairs darkens briefly before Bobbi rushes down. She isn’t restrained in the least and Jemma’s heart drops considerably. Somehow, Ward seems to know how she’s feeling, as his arm slips behind her back in a show of silent support.

“Get your hands off her, you son of a bitch!” Bobbi yells. “What did you do?”

“ _She_ locked herself in with him when the dendrotoxin started filtering in,” Weaver says in a tone of disappointment that once would’ve had Jemma begging forgiveness. Under the circumstances however, Jemma only holds up the tablet as proof.

“Never thought I’d be grateful for my private room,” Ward says.

“Shut up!” Bobbi snaps. “Simmons, lower the force field. We’re not going to hurt you. We just want to talk.”

“We can talk here,” Jemma says, folding her hands carefully over the top of the tablet. “Though I doubt there’s anything you can say to explain.”

Weaver and Bobbi exchange a heavy look.

“See,” Ward whispers in her ear, “that’s them thinking that you’re right.”

“Get _away_ from her,” Bobbi grinds out. Jemma can’t really blame her for being so off-put by Ward’s proximity. He hasn’t relinquished a single inch of space he’s taken since she crossed to this side of the barrier. At the same time, she doesn’t feel as though her space has been invaded. If he weren’t her enemy, if they were the friends she thought they were back on the Bus, she would consider every move he’s made to be carefully calculated as a show of protection against the enemy before them.

And she cannot _believe_ she’s having these thoughts. She hates Weaver and Bobbi all the more for that.

“We had to know if Coulson could be trusted,” Weaver says evenly. “There were questions raised as to his mental state and ability to lead.”

“And now you know those questions were unfounded,” Jemma says sternly. Neither woman appears to agree. “You’ve made your peace with Coulson,” she presses, “and he can come down here himself and tell me to get away from Ward.”

“Coulson ran. Agent May helped him flee the Playground. She has been taken into custody.”

Into _custody_. Like she’s broken some law.

Ward shakes his head so slowly she might miss it if they weren’t sitting so close. His hand tightens around her hip; it’s almost painful and reminds her of the first time he tugged her back, out of the line of gunfire. “That’s low,” he says. “At least I didn’t leave anyone hoping Hand was gonna come back.”

“Coulson is not _dead_!” Bobbi snaps. “He’s on the run.”

“Convenient.”

Jemma hopes Ward is wrong, but she doesn’t have much reason to trust Bobbi’s word.

“So that’s it then?” she asks. “ _You_ decided that Fury chose wrong in handing Coulson leadership of SHIELD and that justified coming to us _as friends_. Living with us, fighting alongside us-” Her breath catches as she meets Bobbi’s eyes. “You saved my _life_.” She laughs humorlessly. “Just so you could prove yourself to us.”

Bobbi has the gall to look heartbroken. “Simmons, no-”

“And to hide your true loyalties until the day you would turn on us, take _everything_ from us.”

Ward whistles lowly. “That does sound familiar.”

“Quiet!” Weaver snaps before turning to Jemma. “ _Please_. I understand that you look up to Coulson and that you’re hurt by our methods-”

“HYDRA’s methods,” Ward mutters under his breath.

“-but you cannot seriously be trusting a man who once tried to _murder_ you. The same man who injured Agent Fitz!”

“Hey! I didn’t try to kill them!” Ward twists to look more fully at her. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead, you know that, right?”

She shakes her head and even goes so far as to hold up a hand to stop him from offering up further defense.

“Simmons,” Bobbi says hopefully.

“At least Ward was honest,” Jemma says, viciously squashing those hopes. “Once he was exposed as a traitor, he has never once pretended to be anything else. So until you can either break past the firewalls on the cell’s controls or produce _Director_ Coulson to order me out of here, I’ll be staying with him.”

“Sim-!” Weaver begins, but is cut off as Jemma turns the barrier opaque and soundproof between them.

Jemma tips her head back and sighs heavily. “I do hope,” she says, her eyes closed against the bright light overhead, “that you aren’t planning on killing me. It would rather undermine my point.”

Ward chuckles. She feels it all the way to her bones as he tugs her closer. “Kill my first house guest? I’m not _that_ uncivilized. I do only have the one bed though.”

She should be horrified by the idea of sleeping next to Ward, but the thought only reminds her that she woke up from a very overdue sleep to come down here. She elbows herself a little room and crawls awkwardly over his lap, the tablet still clutched in one of her hands, to lay down. He figures her out quick enough and follows suit, wrapping one arm around her waist to keep her snuggly against him.

“If they break in while you’re out, I’ll fight ‘em off.”

She laughs once and he squeezes her even tighter. His face is at her neck and she can feel him sniffing her hair. She reminds herself he’s touch-starved after so long down here. It’s not as comforting a thought as she intends it to be, but she shoves it to the back of her mind along with the very fact of his presence and the reason for it. She’s going to sleep and dream and forget about this entire mess for as long as her brain will let her.

She has the sinking feeling there will be plenty of time to tackle her many problems once she’s rested.

 


	53. the end of hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It will be easy, now, to fall into the dreamless sleep she craves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. Post-3x08. With quite a lot of Jemma/Will in addition to the biospec.

She’s pleasantly exhausted and warm to her bones. It will be easy, now, to fall into the dreamless sleep she craves. The past day - the past few _months_ \- won’t be able to trouble her.

The gentle brush of fingers up and down her spine is just lulling her to sleep when the chest pressed against hers rumbles softly. “So do I get to know _now_?”

She squeezes her eyes more tightly shut.

He chuckles. “I know you’re awake.” He bucks his hips. “Come on. Four months we’ve been working together to do this thing and you haven’t bothered to tell me why.”

She folds her hands over his sternum for a pillow while she attempts to find a new comfortable position. “You know why,” she sighs. “Because you’re incapable of sharing power with anyone.” Not Malick and certainly not the mysterious Inhuman banished across the cosmos.

She opens her eyes to banish the image of Malick’s bloated face. This is precisely the sort of thing she was trying to avoid.

“Yeah,” he says seriously, “I know my reasons. I’m talking about _yours_.” His hands trail up her sides and tip her face up so he can see her. The small desk lamp is still on, casting the room in a reddish gold and she can clearly see the intent purpose in his eyes. He’s allowed this subject to pass all this time, he won’t be doing it any longer.

He didn’t believe her when she first came to him with her offer of help. She’s not even sure he believed her when he defended her from Malick’s accusations, but he knew by then their goals were aligned. That was enough to see things to the end, and enough, it seems, to land them here.

His hand kneads the back of her neck with just the right amount of pressure to be both a comfort and a reminder that he could kill her without trouble. “I’ve been trying to figure it out,” he says, his tone light and friendly, “why you’d be doing all this, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe Coulson decided to try an old trick.”

Malick had much the same fear, that she was yet again acting as a mole inside HYDRA. It wasn’t why she poisoned his tea, but it made the decision to do so that much easier.

She lifts an eyebrow and shifts her weight forward. Her thigh brushes against him and he stirs. “I can’t imagine Coulson approving any mission that involves _this_.”

He smiles, his hand moving down her back to squeeze her arse. “No, neither can I. But it’s the only reason I can figure. So unless you have another one…”

His hands are like steel at her back. If he doesn’t like her answer, if she tries to evade yet again, she won’t be leaving this bed.

She _really_ didn’t want to think about this tonight.

“I wasn’t alone,” she says, her sex-warmed blood going cold as she speaks, “on the planet.”

“Yeah, super evil Inhuman, I know.”

“No,” she says quickly. “There was someone else. An astronaut sent there in 2001. I promised him I’d get us both home. And I failed.”

His expression goes carefully neutral and he brushes some of her hair away from her face. “So this was about revenge.” He likes that idea, she can hear it in his voice, and while it would be easy to allow him to think that he’s right, that the Inhuman took Will from her, now that she’s begun her confession, she finds she needs to see it through.

“No. He’s alive. Or was when I left. I don’t imagine the Inhuman got him, not after he’d been able to stay alive fourteen years.” She bites her lip, searching for the words to go on. “I promised him I’d get him home, but when I found out what HYDRA would bring along with him if we ever got that portal open again … I couldn’t let that happen. He saved my life, he kept me going when I would have given up, I _love_ him, and today I doomed him to live the rest of his life alone, in hell, with that monster.”

Even with her eyes wide open on Ward, she can’t stop the memory of the last piece of the monolith shattering. Will’s last hope, turning to nothing more than dust at their feet.

She presses her lips to her folded hands. “I couldn’t just sit by and watch it happen. I had to be the one to do it.”

She waits for Ward’s judgment, for his glee at finding she’s just as much a monster as he is when push comes to shove, but he surprises her.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he sighs. He tugs her up with gentle hands and lays her head on his shoulder before planting an easy kiss in her hair. His hands resume their circuit of her back, but there’s something more caring than controlling in their passage this time. “You did the right thing.”

She cries silently into his neck. Not that she trusts his opinion on the subject, but she knows she did the right thing. She knows Will would understand, would want her to choose the world over him. That doesn’t make the choice any easier, or the fact that he’ll never even know. He’ll think she left him and simply never returned.

She does fall asleep eventually, cold from her confession and with tears staining her cheeks. Ward lends her his warmth and, when her tears would start again in her dreams, soothes them away with rough, stubbly kisses her subconscious pretends come from someone else.

 


	54. did you just crack a smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He can usually count on Fitz to be here, acting as an unknowing buffer, but he ate some of the shrimp at the party and is busy hacking up everything he’s eaten for the past two weeks. Grant kind of wishes he’d eaten some of it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt: “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”

“Hold on,” she says, catching his chin in her gloved hand. His heartbeat - not at all helpfully made public by the monitor on his left hand - jumps and he fights to steady it while she studies him. He thought she was taking a closer look at the cut on his forehead, but her eyes are on his. Slowly, a small smile curls her lips. “Has the Bus entered an alternate reality or did you just smile?”

He doesn’t know how, what with his veins icing over, but the computer is still pumping out that steady beat. From the corner, Skye pipes up, “Oh, he’s  _definitely_  got a concussion. I think he should be on bed rest for the rest of the day. Maybe even the rest of the  _week_!”

Jemma bites her lip to hold back a laugh as she ducks her head. He wants to reach for her, to turn her head so he can see her smile. While he’s fisting his hands to keep from doing just that, she turns to face him all on her own, but the smile’s long gone, replaced by concern. Right.

“You can still do evening drills on the bag without me,” he says to Skye only a few seconds too late. She groans, thinking he drew it out just to mess with her, and stalks from the lab, leaving just him and Jemma. 

May’s on stick - the intel Skye got them while Grant was distracting the guards has them heading to Madrid - and Coulson’s busy doing whatever it is he does upstairs in his office. He can usually count on Fitz to be here, acting as an unknowing buffer, but he ate some of the shrimp at the party and is busy hacking up everything he’s eaten for the past two weeks. Grant kind of wishes he’d eaten some of it too.

“Are you  _sure_  you’re feeling all right?” Jemma asks, giving him a close look while she pulls off her gloves. He fixes his eyes on her hands. It’s easier to remind himself when he can see them. She’s not his. She’s  _never_  been his.

What she said earlier was way too close to the truth and he’s just glad Coulson wasn’t around to hear it. For six weeks Grant’s been living another man’s life. A man who has his name and his face, but who is definitely  _not him_.

Coulson helps as much as he can. Grant told him everything as soon as he could, but that was still nearly a week after he landed here. And then, while they were busy figuring out  _what to do_ , John Garrett called asking for Grant’s help. He couldn’t just leave one of his oldest friends hanging, even if he is only a double of the man Grant thinks of as a second father. Good thing he went too. Turns out, in this world, Grant Ward is a traitor. Now he and Coulson are trying to quietly find out how deep this HYDRA thing goes before it blows up the way it did back home. 

“I’m fine,” Grant says, trying and failing to smile. The strained attempt seems to prove to her he’s telling the truth.

“But you’ll tell me if anything changes?”

“Of course.”

She rolls her eyes. “No you won’t.” She says it so  _fondly_ ; it’s the most he’s gotten out of her since arriving - hell, it’s the most he’s gotten out of her in a lot longer than that - but it’s not fond _enough_. It’s not quite the same way his Jemma would have said it, even before she left him.

His Jemma would know he’s not the genuine article. She’s probably already seen through Grant’s double, assuming they’ve crossed paths. The question then becomes what she’s done about it. Did she kill him the way she tried to kill Grant or did the two of them hit it off? Does she look at the other Grant and see everything she wishes he’d been?

He tears his eyes away from Jemma while he dresses. She’s not his wife. He’s tested her - tested her a  _lot_  - but he can’t find even a drop of the duplicity that, as Grant learned all too painfully, is overflowing in his Jemma. Six weeks ago, he would’ve said the woman six feet away was everything he ever loved about his wife. Now he knows those warm smiles and tender looks were only what drew him in; it’s the woman underneath who made him want to stay, and this Jemma isn’t her. 

Still, those smiles and looks are powerful things, and in a world where they’re all he can have, he finds himself craving them more and more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter takes place in the same universe (more or less) as this one, but prior to this fic.


	55. did you just crack a smile (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grant and Jemma are pinned down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the same universe (so to speak) as the previous chapter.

Another wave of gunfire and Grant ducks behind the lab bench. The door’s still barred - thank God for heavy duty cabinets - but those bastards have shot out the window. They’re doing a damn fine job of keeping Grant pinned down so he can’t figure them another way out of here.

Jemma brushes a hand through his hair, not caring about the blood and dust and dirt he’s been carrying in it since this fucking mess started. He turns his head into her touch, turns to _her_ , and his heart breaks. She’s got this look on her face like- like she’s ready for the end.

No. _Hell_ no. He’s always known this was how he’d go, but he’s not letting these HYDRA sons of bitches touch Jemma. He’ll die first.

“The others are on their way,” he says, catching her hand so he can kiss her wrist. “These guys won’t be any match for May.”

“Skye’s conservative estimate doesn’t have them here for another ten minutes. How long will the door hold?”

Five.

“Twenty. Easy. These guys are all huff, they’ve got nothing.”

“ _Grant_.” She says his name like that a lot. It’s this adorable mix of exasperated and fond that never fails to leave him wanting to kiss her. He shouldn’t, not now. For all that there’s no better time to kiss his wife than when they’re facing certain death, he won’t be able to keep that certainty out of it. He doesn’t want her to lose hope.

She makes the decision for him though, uses the hand still on his face to pull him in and he can’t find the will to stop her. Turns out, he didn’t have any reason to hesitate. She knows. He can feel it in the way she holds him. Hell, he can even taste it in the tear that slips between their lips.

He moves to pull her closer and something sharp pinches his arm. He gasps, breaking the kiss.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes between them.

He blinks but his eyes refuse to refocus. There’s a chill traveling up his arm, straight to his heart. He’s felt this before. A few months ago the team was investigating what they now know to be a HYDRA research facility, where Grant was exposed to a poison. He’s told Jemma spent hours in the lab, fussing over him and working furiously to save his life. He was out for all of it.

The ground rises up to meet him and Jemma eases his fall, helping him lay more comfortably. A glass cylinder presses into his already numb palm but he can’t control his throat to ask what it is. He catches a glimpse of her face as she bends down to kiss him, just one more time.

“I never wanted it to be this way,” she says, brushing her hand through his hair again. Close as she is, he can’t keep her in focus. “But my loyalties have always been with science, and HYDRA-”

The word echoes in his mind as she cuts off. The last few days have been a never-ending hell of questioning the loyalties of every friend he’s ever had, but he never once questioned Jemma’s. She was the one person he never dreamed would be one of the enemy, even when it turned out the enemy was everywhere. She _can’t_ be. There has to be some mistake.

Her hand presses against his cheek and then lifts away. She’s gone.

 


	56. if you keep looking at me like that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma's been injured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “If you keep looking at me like that we won’t make it to a bed.”

She’s in his arms and every hurried step he takes up the stairs jostles her against his chest. Once they make the second floor, she uncurls far enough to scowl at him.

“You keep looking at me like that,” he says, all smiling charm, “we might not make it to the bed.”

She groans. She never should have slept with him, it’s only given him the idea she actually  _likes_  him. She tries to tell him so, but the words escape her midway through and she’s left biting down on a fresh wave of pain emanating from her chest. Grant’s face pales above her - or she thinks it does, it might just be the way everything’s going fuzzy and the overhead lights are bleeding into the shadows. His mouth opens - is he talking? - and his hand moves against her back. That hurts all over again, this time bad enough she drops out of consciousness.

When she comes back up, she has, in fact, made it to the bed of their dingy motel room. The lights are low and the bloody remains of a hasty surgery are laid out on the bedside table. Grant is sitting on the floor next to her, his head on the mattress while his hand grips hers. It’s not often she gets to see him like this, still and relaxed, and she takes advantage of the opportunity. With her eyes she traces the plains of his face, mapping out the sharp bone structure and the scars that have appeared in recent years. 

His hair has fallen over his forehead and she wants to move it aside, but a stiffness around her abdomen prevents her from reaching across her chest. Crisp, white bandages are wrapped around her middle. There’s a square-shaped mound on one side, directly over the spot she remembers pain radiating from, but she feels nothing at all now.

She squeezes his hand gently. His eyes snap open and he lifts his head. “Wha’s ron?” he mutters. He’s usually so much faster to wake up than that and she wonders how much time has passed since she fainted. The curtains tell her nothing, they’re all pulled tight.

She opens her mouth to speak, but it feels like it’s full of cotton. She swallows several times and Grant produces a glass of water for her to sip at.

“What have you got me on?” she asks when he pulls it away.

“Hell if I know. Is it working?”

Yes, she’d say so. She can barely feel anything at all and her thoughts are slow and languid. It must be powerful stuff.

“I have to pee,” she says, suddenly aware of the fact.

Grant shifts to his knees before freezing. “Uh, hold on.”

While she watches, he crosses the tiny room to slip into the loo. If he’s about to bring her a bottle, she will flog him, gunshot wound or no gunshot wound. When he emerges though, it’s not with a bottle, but with a grown man who’s bound and gagged.

“Sorry,” Grant says. To her. Not the man, who he shoves into the room’s tiny closet before returning to her side. “Careful,” he cautions, reminding her she intends on getting up. The trouble of reaching the loo is enough to distract her, but the blood splatter on the floor reminds her while she’s trying to relax.

“Who was that?”

Grant’s leaning against the wall beside the door and doesn’t seem phased by her belated interest. “Your doctor.”

“Ah.” Yes, that would make sense. Grant’s not much for that sort of thing himself. “Don’t kill him.”

“Jem,” Grant sighs.

“You always kill  _everyone_ ,” she says, well aware she sounds like she’s whining. But she has license to, doesn’t she? She had to examine Koenig’s body  _herself_. He was someone who’d helped her - helped them all - just like this doctor person. He didn’t deserve to die for his good deed.

And some of that she must have said out loud because Grant says, “I did have to threaten the guy to get him to do it.”

She glares at him and he laughs. 

“Fine. I won’t kill the damn doctor. Happy?”

She nods and feels suddenly unsettled. Grant catches her before she can fall and guides her back to bed, confirming several times along the way that she did, in fact, manage to empty her bladder, even if she can’t remember doing so.

He tucks her back in bed and checks her bandages to make sure there’s no bleeding through, and then he settles again on the floor. 

“I never should have slept with you,” she sighs while she runs a heavy hand through his hair. She makes it through twice before he catches her hand and kisses the back of it with tenderness that isn’t nearly as surprising as it once would have been. His eyes remain fixed on her face while he returns the hand to her side. He doesn’t let go.


	57. all of this for me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x08 Grant's come to the team with an offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "You did all of this for me?"

He may be hand- and ankle-cuffed, but he still thinks he does a damn good job sauntering into the room and the glares he receives tell him he manages well enough. He’s not too bothered by them or by the guards _or_ by the bolt on the floor they shackle him to. This is, after all, his show.

“All of this for me?” he asks. “I’m touched.”

“What the hell do you want, Ward?” Coulson asks. He holds up a hand before Grant can answer. “And, keep in mind, if you don’t give me a decent answer in a hundred words or less, I’ll let Hunter put a bullet in your brain.”

There is a lot of arguing over that - specifically, why Hunter of all people gets the honor. Grant just smiles through it, waiting patiently for Coulson to get these idiots quieted down. Things like this never happened on the Bus.

“HYDRA wants to bring the big bad Inhuman back from whatever hell Jemma was stranded - I assume she told you about the monster that ate people’s will to live?” There are scattered nods. “Right. Turns out, HYDRA’s endgame is letting this bastard conquer the Earth. I’m not a big fan of other people conquering things I want.” That gets a few rolled eyes.

“You expect us to believe you’re here to help?” Sk- _Daisy_ asks. Jemma told him about the change, he’s gotta get used to that.

“For purely selfish reasons, yes.”

“How?” Coulson asks.

“I can tell you what the game plan is right now _and_ I can feed you intel on what Malick does after you screw that up.”

“You expect us to let you go?” Morse asks.

“If you wanna stop Malick, I don’t see you have a choice.”

“We have the monolith,” Daisy says. “What’s left of it anyway. It’s not like there’s-”

“About a dozen others scattered all over the globe? No. Of course not. And it’s not like Malick has the world’s only authority on how the damn things work helping him.”

Worried and wide-eyed looks are exchanged. Fitz looks like he wants to run over and sock Grant in the jaw.

Grant hisses in a falsely apologetic breath. “Oh, you didn’t know. Yeah. Jemma’s been very helpful. Assuming the Inhuman doesn’t want to eat her alive for getting away, Malick just might forgive her for that whole double-agent thing.”

“She wouldn’t,” Fitz says.

Grant’s about to say something to that but before he can, his phone, still in the hands of one of the guards, rings. “That’s her ringtone. If you wanna use me, you should probably let me take this.”

Coulson gives it another ring before waving his hand, the real one, in acquiescence. The guard hands over the phone and Grant turns it to speaker out of necessity; tied up as he is, there’s no way he can talk directly into it without bending double.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says and is rewarded with disgust and gags from the others.

“Where are you?” Jemma asks. “Malick is getting twitchy.”

“You said we couldn’t safely run another test until tonight.”

“Yes, and I also said that _Malick is getting twitchy_. He wants to start now and you’re better at controlling him than I am.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Grant says dryly.

Jemma makes an ugly sound. “If he had, I’d convince him it wasn’t about him at all.”

“Yeah? You think he’d buy that?” She’s gotten better at lying and has even convinced Malick her only motive in helping them is hope of surviving when the Inhuman returns, but no way she’s _that_ good.

“I’d tell him I was talking about our sex life, and since you do enjoy being in control so much more than I do…”

“Yeah,” Grant says, grinning at the horrified looks he’s receiving, “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want to hear about that.”

“Quite right. So when will you be back?” she demands. “I can’t hold him off forever and this really has to wait.”

Grant meets Coulson’s eyes. The man is pissed, but he’s not about to let it make him stupid. He nods curtly.

“Soon,” Grant says. “I just have to finish up some things here.”

“Well hurry. If you make it back within the hour, I’ll even do that thing I swore I’d never do again.”

Oh hell. Coulson’s gonna keep him another hour just to make sure that doesn’t happen. “Don’t tease, sweetheart,” Grant says, barely managing to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He ends the call and tosses the phone back to the guard, who catches it like he’s afraid it might have morphed into a bomb in the last two minutes.

Daisy’s the first to find her voice. “You’re-? No. _No._ ” She waves her hands, physically blocking him from her view. “There is _no way_.”

“You did something to her,” Fitz says, barely leashed fury in his tone. “Brainwashed her or- or _something_.”

“Listen,” Grant says patiently, “this is not a real relationship. She’s using me as cover against Malick and to get her boyfriend back from outer space, and I’m using her for sex and to make you all incredibly uncomfortable. It’s win-win.”

Actually, Grant might be winning a little more here. This is like watching an entire room full of people go through the stages of grief at different rates. Denial, anger, horror - hell, he expects Fitz might start bargaining any second, trying to get him to say it’s not true. Coulson’s the only one at the acceptance stage, that or his poker face is just that good.

“Can I shoot him?” Hunter - anger stage, obviously - asks.

“I’m thinking about it,” Coulson says.

Grant shifts, letting himself get comfortable. He figures the thinking will last just long enough that Grant can’t get back before his hour’s up. Twisted old bastard. He’s lucky Grant needs his help with this whole save-the-world thing. Once it’s over though, he won’t be forgetting that Coulson kept him from what would’ve been a truly spectacular night.


	58. break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3x09 AU - He’ll hurt Fitz and Simmons if he has to, but that doesn’t mean he’ll enjoy it. 
> 
> Lucky then, that he doesn’t have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for my 25 days of fic.

“You’re gonna tell me everything you know, _right now_ ,” he roars. He doesn’t know anymore if the berserker rage is still in him or if this is all genuine emotion. Doesn’t much matter because all Simmons does is lift her chin.

Fuck.

He slams his fist into the pipe above her head and uses the force to propel himself back to his feet so he can pace away. She’s not just keeping quiet waiting on rescue. _That_ he could work with. Eventually - and he could absolutely make that come sooner rather than later - the pain would be too much. But this? This is _readiness_. She’s willing to _die_ to keep them from bringing that thing here.

(He wonders, in the back of his mind, what’s scary enough to drive her to this.)

He breathes deep. _Focus._ If he can’t scare Simmons into giving him what he wants, what does he need?

He needs Fitz to crack.

He could stick with the plan. It would get him the answers he needs and the restitution his pounding blood is screaming for. Torture her, break her bit by bit the way he did Morse. Even if they manage to rescue her, it would tear Coulson and Morse and that bastard Hunter up inside finding what he left of her. But the getting there … Some of his anger cools. He’ll hurt Fitz and Simmons if he has to, but that doesn’t mean he’ll enjoy it.

Lucky then, that he doesn’t have to.

“Kara liked you,” he says, facing her.

She’s surprised by the shift in subject and, honestly, so is he. He always knew he _could_ go down this road with her, he just didn’t think he _would_. Before he can lose his nerve, the image of Hunter pressing a _fucking gun_ to Thomas’ head wells up in his mind again. Yeah, no. He’s doing this.

“She was glad you had nothing to do with what happened to her, even if you were _why_ it happened.”

Simmons has the decency to show a little shame. Better than he got from the bitch who actually betrayed Kara.

“She didn’t want to hurt you and neither do I.”

The shame disappears, replaced by dark humor. Damn but he really is proud of what’s become of her. She used to be this fragile little flower and now she’s as cold as May. He hopes this doesn’t ruin all of that.

He squats down in front of her again, close enough his knees brush her legs. She pulls them a little closer to her chest, but there’s just not enough space. Her eyes go hard, distant. She’s ready for a blow.

“Coulson has my brother,” Grant says, brushing his fingers tenderly over the mark Malick's Inhuman left on her cheek and letting the motion carry his hand into her hair. The gentle touch is so at odds from what she’s expecting that it sets her off balance. “And he knows where we are. He’s coming for you and Fitz, so I really do need that information _now_.”

Hope lights in her eyes, but it’s gone fast. She’s too smart to believe he’ll let her walk out of here.

Her gaze drifts over his shoulder. “If it’s all the same,” she says in a voice that has to tear her throat up, “I’d prefer the part of the torture with less talking, thanks.”

He chuckles. She’s stronger than he ever gave her credit for. His fingers twist in her hair, forcing her to look at him. “Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance,” he says. “Since you’re determined to be so difficult, all I need from you anymore is to take a deep breath. You know what is best.”

 _Now_ she’s afraid. Her heels skid on the floor and bump his feet but there’s not enough force behind them to do any harm. He keeps his grip tight, pressing her head into the pipe to keep her from twisting away.

“What is best,” he goes on serenely, “is that you comply.” The fight is already leeching out of her. Her weak struggles have ended and her features are relaxed. He lets go and pets down the hair she’s gotten tangled. “Are you ready to comply?”

While she lets out a long breath, her features morph into a smile. It’s been a long time since she gave him one of those and he returns it.

“Yes,” she sighs in something like relief. Her head tips into his palm. “I’m happy to comply.”

He thought it’d be worse, watching her will fall away, but it didn’t remind him of Kara at all. She’d hate this, always said she didn’t want to use Bakshi’s intel to activate Simmons if they could help it, but Grant thinks she’d understand. They have his _brother_.

“Good.” He slaps his knees while he stands and heads for the case of toys Malick’s Inhuman left behind. “I’d like it if we could keep this between us. Think you can pretend to hate me in front of Malick and the rest of them? Just for a little while,” he soothes when her brow creases. She nods.

He gives her a pleased grin and grabs a cattle prod from the case. Fitz is no stranger to electricity and he’ll be painting all sorts of pictures in his head when he hears the discharge from this thing. “Now, I know you’ll tell me everything about how to get back from the planet, but I’d rather not send you through to the other side.” She’s definitely the better choice, but now that she’s on his side, he’d like her to stay there in case this overlord Inhuman thing goes out of control. Besides, Coulson will be worried about her. It’s only right Grant let him see her when he arrives. “Do you think you’ll still be able to talk if I ask you to scream a while longer?”

She frowns and swallows once or twice before nodding. Probably he shouldn’t push her voice, but Fitz saw him walking away; he’s wasted too much time as it is.

“It won’t be too long, but I do need Fitz to think you’re dying in here. So.” He jams the prod into a cabinet near the door. It lets off a wicked crack that they can probably hear all the way in the castle. It’s nothing compared to Simmons’ screams.

 


	59. lying hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Season 1. Jemma doesn't think she can handle this undercover mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for my 25 days of fic. And for safelycapricious, who wanted something happy. :)

The French countryside is rolling past her window, but Jemma doesn’t see it. Her eyes are shut tight, going over the mission briefing Coulson gave her, the hours she spent in private with May, the words and phrases she’s been instructed to touch on during the upcoming conversation. All of that would be an excellent distraction, were it not all focused precisely on the one human being she wants to _not_ think about.

It’s silly, really. He’s not a mercenary or a terrorist or a mad man gifted with superpowers - all of which she’s faced in recent months - and yet her heart is pounding so hard it hurts.

“Stop,” she says and it comes out rather hoarse. 

“Something wrong?” Ward asks from up in the front seat.

“Stop!”

He obediently pulls the town car over, every inch the chauffer he’s pretending to be. Jemma keeps her eyes tightly shut, listening to the slowing of her heart. It’s still not calm, but she doesn’t feel as though she’s about to have a heart attack anymore either. She loosens her grip on the edge of the leather seats and immediately a hand slips under one of hers.

“Hey,” Ward says. He must’ve moved into the back with her after pulling over and she didn’t even notice. His other hand brushes her forehead. “You don’t look so good.”

“I just- I’m not sure I can do this.” She knows this isn’t the time for backing out, but when they were on the Bus it all seemed much simpler. It was a mission then, just like any other. Now that they’re actually on their way however, it feels like she’s about to talk to her ex-fiancé for the first time in two years.

Ward’s smile quirks up on one side in that way that always makes her heart flutter. Which is really not the sort of thing she should be thinking under the circumstances, but as the smile does serve to sooth her nerves a little, she can’t quite regret it. “The seeing him again,” he asks, “or the lying?”

“Both!” She throws up her free hand, leaving her other settled in Ward’s loose grip. “Everyone knows I’m a terrible liar and Ty knows me better than nearly anyone.” He’ll see through her in an instant and then this whole operation will be ruined. They won’t get the intel they need on Ty’s mysterious employer and, worse, said employer will know they’re coming. And all because Jemma is the worst liar ever to wear a SHIELD badge.

“Now that’s just not true.”

She gives Ward a hard look. She _shot_ Agent Sitwell.

“If he really knew you, he never would’ve broken up with you.”

Oh, damn him. Ward has the terrible habit of always saying just the thing to make her fall a little more hopelessly for him. And she can’t even hate him for it. 

She shakes her head. “I can’t lie to him. All this about me being done with SHIELD and their restrictions? Even if I were the best liar in the world, that’s just not me. He’ll see right through it.”

Ward is ready for that. “And he’ll assume you’re making a play to get him back. All you have to do is let him believe it.”

She moans and lets her head fall back against the seat. She stares at the ribbon of bright blue sky dancing at the top of her vision. Ty is a former SHIELD scientist and, as such, they have extensive psychological profiles on him to aid in this mission, so that is precisely what May told her while preparing her for this. Unfortunately, Jemma is equally ill-equipped to play into Ty’s misconceptions.

She turns her head on the seatback to fix Ward with a pleading look. “I can’t-”

“Don’t think of it as lying.”

She rolls her eyes, May gave her this speech too.

“Think of it as revenge.”

Or, perhaps May didn’t give her _quite_ this speech.

“This is the jerk who broke your heart, right? Now you get to make him pay.” Ward shifts so he’s sitting more comfortably in the seat beside her. It involves extracting his hand from beneath hers, but it ends with them shoulder-to-shoulder. Her head snaps upright, her teeth going to worry her lower lip. “Every time he flirts and you want to smack him? Just think about how he’s only digging his grave that much deeper.”

That’s not just terrible, it’s _cruel_. And yet, she finds herself attracted to it as a solution to her problem. She would certainly enjoy watching him puff himself up while he’s giving her all she needs to destroy him - for _SHIELD_ to destroy him. But the methods…

“I _can’t_ ,” she says, shaking her head again. “I can’t-”

“Simmons-”

“No!” she says fiercely, angling away from Ward. She doesn’t need him distracting her right now. “I can’t flirt. I can’t pretend I still want him because-” Her voice cracks and something in Ward’s expression darkens.

“Oh.”

She nods glumly. She won’t say she still _loves_ Ty, but she knows herself. When she sees him again, all those old feelings she hasn’t quite managed to exorcise will come welling back up. She’ll enjoy his flirting not because he’s digging his own grave, but because it’s _him_. Even with the laundry list of crimes SHIELD suspects him of, even after what he did to her, she’ll fall for him all over again. And that’s the real danger to this mission, isn’t it? That she can’t be relied upon to betray her ex.

“What did you tell him?” Ward asks after a long silence. “When you asked to see him?”

“Just that I was in the area, vacationing, and I’d thought about dropping by.” Coulson came up with the lie and he and May were right there with her while she made the call, offering moral support she won’t have during her meeting with Ty.

“And he’s just inviting you for tea? Nothing formal or anything?”

She shakes her head.

“Good.” Ward climbs out of the car.

She sighs. It will be easier to break the casual appointment, but rescheduling won’t do any good. She hasn’t been able to hate him after two years, an extra day or two isn’t going to make any difference.

She jumps when the trunk of the car slams. Ward knocks on the window a moment later. “Get in the front,” he calls through the glass. He’s removed his hat and jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt past his elbows.

“What are we doing?” she asks when she climbs in beside him.

“We’re going to your meeting,” he says as he pulls back into traffic. “Together.”

She frowns. Didn’t they just agree she _can’t_ go to the meeting?

“You need a reason for your defection that won’t raise Lowry’s red flags. Leaving because your new boyfriend convinced you SHIELD was stifling your potential seems like a good cover.”

Oh no. _Ohhhhh_ no. “You?” she asks, unable to voice a more complete question.

“Keep the cover simple. We met seven months ago - which we did - and we can say we started dating when I jumped out of a plane after you. But maybe let’s just tell Lowry I took you out for drinks, okay?”

She nods, more for lack of anything better to do than out of real acceptance.

Ward’s hand catches hers and he laces their fingers together on the center console. “Hey. You wanna back out of this, I will get us in a car crash right here and now, Coulson will never know you backed out. But this way you don’t have to worry about him flirting with you and I can keep you grounded so you don’t lose your cover. So which is it?” He turns the wheel gently from left to right, not far enough to move them out of their lane, but enough to let her know he’s genuine in his offer.

“No,” she says and rests her hand over their joined ones. A thrill of something dangerous goes through her. “Thank you. I appreciate the help.”

“No problem.” The smile he throws her warms her to her toes and she smiles back. She doubts she’ll have any fear of falling back under Ty’s spell while Ward is pretending to be infatuated with her. The problem, of course, will be falling out from under _Ward’s_ spell, but then she’s been trying to do that for months.

 


	60. sobriety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grant's addiction isn't to drugs or alcohol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 25 days of fic post. :)

Four. Eleven. Two. Four. Eleven. Two. The numbers go round and round in Grant’s head while the sun moves from one side of the living room to the other. Sometimes, when the noises from the chair across from him get too loud, he adds other numbers, but those change too fast and pull his attention away from the repetition. He can’t afford that, so he sits and he watches and he waits with the numbers marching steadily through his mind.

Four. Eleven. Two.

Eventually, _finally_ , there’s a knock at the door. He knows who it is. He’s seen the bushes moving outside, the tree branches growing heavy from bodies resting in them, the light reflecting off windows in a car pulling into the alley behind the back fence.

“Come in!” Grant yells while he stands. He angles his body so he can see the door and the chair.

Coulson steps inside, more curious than cautious. His eyes travel over the cold breakfasts still sitting out on the dining room table, the signs of a struggle that took out three rooms, the man tied and gagged and bleeding in the chair. All of these things Coulson passes over easily, it’s the rest that he catches on. The crude paintings framed on the walls, the flowered rain boots sitting next to the door, the pink pony laying in two pieces in front of the fireplace.

“Ward,” Coulson says. His eyes return to the man in the chair. “It looks like things caught up with you.”

Grant isn’t sure whether there’s an “about time” hanging silently on the end there, but it might just be his imagination so he ignores it. “I- I didn’t know who else to call.”

“Didn’t know you had my number. I might’ve changed it if I had.” He’s still staring at the man and steps into the room, lays his hands on the back of the armchair Grant spent the day in.

“Jemma,” Grant says, figuring it’s enough of an explanation.

“Of course.”

They weren’t about to abandon her to him. They probably assumed she’d be calling sooner rather than later. Probably figured, if something like this ever happened, she’d go running back to them, not give him the number so he could ask for help while she drops off the grid.

Coulson crosses the room with measured steps and bends down to stare the man in the eye. He takes stock of his injuries one by one and finally faces Grant.

“Bobbi,” he says. The front door swings open again and a team of agents in full tac gear rush in. Grant wonders what he’s gonna tell the neighbors.

The agents take the man, chair and all, out the back to where Grant knows their vehicle’s waiting. When he’s gone, the tightness that’s been building steadily all day beneath Grant’s skin releases. Not as much as it would if he was dead, but it’s a relief all the same.

“Honestly,” Coulson says into the silence the agents left behind, “I thought I was coming here to pick up a body. You’ve changed.” He frowns like he’s disappointed.

Did they come here thinking they’d find an excuse to kill him? Like they don’t have enough already? What would killing the man who attacked him in his home, in front of his _wife_ and his _child_ do to unbalance those scales?

“I don’t do that anymore,” Grant says. Because he doesn’t. He hasn’t killed another human being in four years, eleven months, and two days. Today was the closest he’s come in a long time to breaking that streak.

Coulson stares at him for several heavy seconds before sweeping the room again. Just like before, he doesn’t see the destruction, only the signs of the normal life Grant and Jemma have carved out here, together. “Take care of them,” he says finally and leaves the way he came.

Grant waits. He watches the reflection of the windows fade from over the back fence, watches the bushes move and the trees resettle. Not all of them, but most. Enough he knows he’s only being watched. A cautionary surveillance to see what he’ll do next. To make sure he won’t and hasn’t hurt his family.

When he’s sure he’s as alone as he will be, he starts picking up the pieces of his life. The sooner things are cleaned up, the sooner he can go get Jemma and Maggie from the safe house.

 


	61. scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x09 - Jemma shouldn't be doing this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for my 25 days of fic. Mildly smutty.

His fingers trace her scars. She doesn’t bother with his. She tended a great many of the injuries herself and those she didn’t, she’s either familiar with or knows the people who caused them. But he seems fascinated by hers. Whenever they fall into the dreamy quiet after a good go-round, he draws calloused fingers along the puckering canyon that mars her calf, touches each of the tiny nicks her fingers earned working in the lab.

It’s when he reaches her torso that she gives his perusal her attention. He makes no sign these are any different than the rest, but they are. He palms the angry puckering along her lower ribs with the same quiet care he showed all the others. She’d never know, if she hadn’t been there herself, that he was the one who inflicted these.

She holds perfectly still, waiting for some sign, some indication of remorse or guilt. Even if he felt none before, shouldn’t he now? They’re still enemies, but they’re no longer _just_ enemies. If they were, they wouldn’t be sharing this bed, wouldn’t have shared a dozen others in equally seedy motels across the country.

They’re _involved_. She decided on that word several weeks ago. They’re certainly not _dating_. That requires more than simple sex. But they’re not having an affair, either. That word is too crass, too ugly. Involved is best, she feels, for describing their relationship without actually describing it. It leaves plenty of room for interpretation - and she certainly does enough of that.

He moves up to her collarbone. The scar she has there was dealt by an AIM scientist two months ago and, shortly after her following encounter with Ward, SHIELD received intelligence that said scientist had died. Gruesomely. So he _does_ care, she thinks, but not enough to apologize for the marks he’s left on her.

Or maybe he doesn’t feel he needs to. Maybe, in his eyes, the reminders of the torture he inflicted on her are signs of ownership.

And there she goes interpreting again. Always him, never her. That’s the problem. If she really thought for two seconds together on why she relaxes when he finally moves on from her ribs, on why she’s _relieved_ that he never brings it up, she would never see him again.

He brushes sweat-slick hair from her forehead to drag his thumb over the cut on her eyebrow. That done, he meets her eyes with a smile that stirs her up inside, throws everything out of balance so she can’t - _won’t_ \- think straight.

He tips her head, bringing it to a more accessible angle for a kiss.

She shouldn’t be doing this.

The thought lasts only as long as it takes for the pleasure of his lips on hers to reach her brain.

His leg slides between hers, his knee presses against her center as he lifts himself up over her, never breaking the kiss. She moans into his mouth, eager for another go and the chance to lose herself in him for just a little while longer.

 


	62. future plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma wants answers.

Grant feels old living on the Bus. There’s more than one reason for that, but the most lasting are the sleeping habits. Coulson and May are early risers, and Grant’s right there with them, padding near-silent around the kitchen and lounge, each of them making only enough noise that they won’t startle the others and start a fight so early.

Skye sleeps like a college kid, anywhere she lands for as long as she’s able, which means she doesn’t get up a second before seven - and she only gets up _that_ early because Grant’ll drag her out of bed if she’s a minute late.

Fitz and Simmons are usually up most nights making advances in obscure scientific fields. Grant hasn’t once heard them stumble into their bunks before 0100. So he’s a little surprised when he comes down the stairs today and finds Simmons sitting on the last step.

“Hey,” he says.

She jumps up immediately, wiping at the seat of her jeans and then the front of her shirt like her hands can’t stay still.

“You’re up early,” Grant says with a coaxing smile as he steps onto the floor of the cargo bay.

She doesn’t return the grin, which is surprising. Usually a smile like that is enough to have her blushing. “Didn’t sleep, actually,” she says.

He frowns. The mission yesterday was bad, yeah, but it wasn’t their worst and he was close by her the whole time. Even when May needed backup, he used his ICER to drop the guys ganging up on her while keeping close to Simmons and Fitz.

“You know I’m always there to protect you, right? That’s my job.” He tries to make it a joke, but she’s not buying it.

“You endangered May. If you’d shot her-”

“You think I can’t hit a few terrorists from across a room?”

She gives him a stern look she usually reserves for Fitz. “I think, with the way everyone was moving, you were lucky you didn’t hit May.” She folds her arms under her breasts and squares her jaw. “Fitz and I were- we weren’t _safe_ but we had cover and we’re both certified with the night-night pistols. You could’ve left us. You _should_ have left us. And I want to know why you didn’t.”

Grant heads for the punching bag. He considers starting right away but his hands aren’t wrapped yet and if he hurts himself it’ll just give Simmons the chance to start this up again. So he forces his hands to remain steady while he binds them and talks at the same time.

“You and Fitz are valuable, probably the most valuable people on this plane, and you’ve got the least amount of training. Even Skye’s passed you both by in terms of self-defense. So I chose to protect you two in a hostile situation.”

She shakes her head. “Last week? The mission in Kiev? You left Fitz to help Coulson even though he could’ve easily handled his one assailant.”

“That’s not-”

“Don’t. Don’t lie to me, Ward. I can come up with at least a dozen instances of you protecting me when you shouldn’t have and I’m sure Skye could come up with at least a dozen more. I’d like the truth, please.”

The truth is that Simmons - tiny, unassuming Jemma Simmons - is the key to everything. When she died at the bottom of the ocean, she took all the team’s goodwill with her. They wouldn’t listen to Grant’s apologies or his reasons. They wouldn’t even accept his help without the promise - not the threat, the _promise_ \- of erasing his memories afterward. So he found a way to undo it, he found a second chance.

As long as he can keep Simmons alive through the uprising, everything will work out. The team will forgive him - maybe not right away, but after a few weeks, maybe months.

So there’s no way in hell he’s risking losing her to some random terrorist in the meantime.

He can’t tell her any of that though, so he asks, “Skye?”

Simmons’ determined stare falls and her eyes dart away as a blush climbs up her neck. “Yes. Skye … seems to be under the impression you have a crush on me. Which I know isn’t the case. You enjoy flirting with me, but I know very well you don’t-”

That’s disappointing. He doesn’t have a crush, but he does have a mission and if Skye’s noticed his preoccupation with Simmons, it means he hasn’t been as covert as he intended. It also means he needs a way to explain himself that won’t involve terrifying Simmons with her past-future death.

Lucky for him, the girls have given him the perfect excuse.

He drops the tape and steps into Simmons’ space. She draws in a short breath and her eyes go wide.

“Ward…”

His half-taped hand traces along her jaw and he lowers his mouth to hers for a slow kiss. She stiffens for half a second before melting against him and he smiles. This’ll give him the perfect excuse to keep her close through the uprising and, if he gets to do more of this, it won’t be a half-bad way to reinforce his cover.

 


	63. a private conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you first,” she blurts. It’s the first thing that springs to mind and gets a hollow laugh out of him.
> 
> “Well that answers that question.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> S1 AU. No prompt - unless you count Amy pushing an idea onto me. Posted for my 25 days of fic.

It’s meant to be a brief escape, just a quarter of an hour or so to quietly check her guilty pleasure gossip blog in the privacy only one of the Bus’s storage lockers can provide, but as Jemma closes the app, she finds herself unwilling to move. It’s peaceful down here, much more than it will be if she goes back upstairs. And it will _have_ to be upstairs because Coulson has refused to allow her to even _enter_ the lab for the time being. And he’s not even the worst of it! The bottom level of the Bus is always noticeably colder than the rest and, seated on the hard floor as she is, she’s fairly freezing - and yet it’s far more comfortable than laying on the couch upstairs and being caught at the center of Fitz and Skye’s competition over who can be the most helpful.

So she won’t be going anywhere, at least not just yet. She finds a spot on the chest of drawers behind her that isn’t poking into her skull to rest - just for a few minutes.

As luck would have it, it’s not even that long. The door of the storage locker rolls loudly along its track only a moment after she closes her eyes.

“Oh thank goodness,” she sighs, seeing who it is.

Ward is understandably shocked by such a reception and looks up and down the hall before ducking inside with her. He avoids looking directly at her - for good reason, she thinks, she hasn’t been able to look at him straight for _days_ \- but manages well enough to look her over for signs of trouble.

“Are you all right?” he asks, hunkering down into a squat somewhere around her knees.

“I’m fine.” She rolls her eyes. “You’d think with the way everyone’s acting that we’re diverting to the Hub because I was dying. Again.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re all right.”

“Says the man who routinely tries to hide his injuries from me.”

He turns his head away, looking pained. “I should go.”

“No.” She catches his hand before he can straighten up fully. “Stay. We should talk, I suppose.”

He sits this time, next to her feet so he can face her properly. Damn it all, he looks like he’s expecting her to start this conversation, but if she knew how to do that, they’d have had it already.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you first,” she blurts. It’s the first thing that springs to mind and gets a hollow laugh out of him.

“Well that answers that question.”

He doesn’t sound surprised - and why should he be? It’s not as though she’s had much opportunity lately, leaving very few options for the father of her child.

“I don’t know when,” she says, only to have something to fill the silence. They’ve had sex twice: once when he helped her take the edge off her latent fear after saving her from the Chitauri virus, and once when she returned the favor by helping him through the worst of the berserker rage. Nothing was ever meant to come of it, but it seems nature has other plans. “They might narrow it down … at the Hub.”

Ward grunts in a way she doesn’t care to decipher.

The review she’s to have is standard for an agent in her condition, the only trouble here is the diversion of her entire field team to accommodate the necessity. She’ll be given a full work up, after which she will meet with an agent who will present to her the options.

“I’ve looked up the procedures-”

“Of course you have,” Ward says to his knees. His arms are folded across his chest but she thinks she can see the curl of a smile on his cheek.

“Regardless of when it happened, I’ll be allowed to stay on the Bus a few months longer at least. Unless you object - as team specialist, of course.”

He meets her eyes suddenly and she hates how little she can make out of what he’s thinking. “You’re keeping it then,” he says.

“I don’t expect anything from you,” she says quickly. “I haven’t- I won’t even mention you. Unless they ask, of course. We both know I’m rubbish at lying.”

She was careful to avoid telling Coulson who the father was, but if it comes out that it’s a member of the team, there will be a disciplinary review in addition to the medical one.

He stares at her, unreadable as ever, and she fights the urge to squirm.

“I wanna come to the review with you,” he says finally.

“I told you, I don’t expect you to-”

He shifts forward to grab her hand. His is delightfully warm against the cold of the storage locker. “I know. And if you’re just saying that to be nice, if you don’t _want_ me to be involved, I get it. A specialist’s life isn’t exactly good for a kid. But if you’ll let me, I wanna be there.”

His thumb over her knuckles is distracting and it’s all she can do to control her smile. She wasn’t precisely looking _forward_ to doing this alone, but she was willing to do her utmost. The offer of help is a more than welcome one. And, if she’s honest, one she was secretly hoping for.

She covers his hand with hers. “You’re not mad then?”

He smiles, bigger than she’s ever seen from him. “A little, at myself for not checking the dates on those condoms. But once I got over the surprise, I’ve been mostly terrified - an excited kind of terrified.”

She ducks her head. “I don’t know many specialists - or _any_ , other than you - but I think you’ll do a fine job.” And, just because she has to be certain, she adds, “Assuming, that is, that you’re really sure you want to-”

He huffs and pulls himself across the narrow locker to her side, where he somehow manages to get her settled between his legs with only minimal maneuvering. His arms encircle her waist and warmth bleeds from his chest into her back; she can’t help but lean into him.

“I’m sure,” he whispers over her hair.

She lets her cheek fall against his shoulder and rests her hands over his on her stomach. “We still have to talk about … us. Not that I expect there to be an _us_ , I only mean-”

He shushes her, the sound echoing in her own chest. “Let’s just survive the review, okay? One thing at a time or you’ll work yourself up.”

She sighs, tired suddenly and perfectly comfortable in his arms. That could prove to be a problem, depending on how that conversation goes.

But he’s right, she _will_ drive herself mad if she starts thinking too far ahead. It’s much easier to let the rhythm of his breathing and the warmth of his body distract her from what’s waiting at the Hub, and to let the promise of his presence ease her lingering fears.

 


	64. smell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3x10 missing scene (no Jemma)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First sentence prompt from Safely Capricious! <3 Posted for my 25 days of fic.

It was a familiar smell, but he couldn’t place why. Grant frowned at the corners of the cave, wondering if the source would jump out at him any second.

(Hell, it probably _would_ in a place like this.)

When nothing presented itself, he grabbed the new guy and proceeded to threaten his life. It wasn’t anything personal - Grant had a lot of respect for people who could survive extreme isolation - but Fitz clearly gave a shit about this random guy (astronaut, if those ratty clothes were any indication) and, as they’d learned just recently, Fitz was _very_ easy to control when people he cared about were being hurt.

Bad news: Grant’s play kind of fizzled out when Fitz said this guy was the only one who could get them to the portal in time. Great.

Better news: by the time the little stand-off was done, Grant was about fifty percent certain the guy Fitz cared so damn much about wasn’t really an astronaut anymore.

He knew about Maveth, about the possession and all, so it hadn’t been as much of a shock as he’d implied that there was  _someone_ here, only that the great HYDRA messiah was in this _literal hole in the ground_.

Whatever. Grant wasn’t about to judge. He just wanted to get this guy home already - and told him so.

He thought they came to an understanding - but who could tell between Grant’s uncertainty over whether or not this really was Maveth and the guy’s entire … _thing_. The not-right-in-the-head thing. Could’ve been isolation. Could’ve be thousands of years of isolation. No way to tell, so Grant just rolled with it. He had the whole trek to the portal site to decide whether or not to kill him.

And they _really_ needed to be heading back out so he put a pin in those problems for later and turned for the hatch to the surface, only to stop dead. From this angle he could see through a little pseudo doorway into the next cavern and it definitely wasn’t empty.

“Well, I guess we know how Jemma survived here so long - she wasn’t alone.”

Now Grant knew what that smell had been. Her. Even months after she found her way back to Earth, her scent still lingered here, clinging to every corner of this place.

Under the pretense of throwing a leer over his shoulder, he took another look around the cave and saw her little touches everywhere. Nothing overt, but the arrangement of the tools was a smaller version of how she’d had them on the Bus and he recognized her style in the pile of neatly folded clothes in the corner.

Fitz scowled, more angry at Grant than the guy who’d fucked Simmons. Maybe-Maveth didn’t seem bothered. He didn’t seem _not_ bothered either though, so Grant couldn’t put a tick in the human or inhuman columns. He told himself that was why he decided to do it, for the proof, but the truth was, he was still a little pissed at Fitz for jumping down a strange hole on an alien planet.

“She’s fun, huh?” he asked, smiling at whoever-he-was but keeping an eye on Fitz’s reaction over the guy’s shoulder. “Doesn’t seem like much but she’s adventurous when she gets going.” He clicked his tongue in a sign of deep appreciation. “Girl’s a screamer, bet that got fun in a place like this.” He lifted his chin towards the ceiling and the deserted surface.

“Shut up!” Fitz yelled and came half to his feet. He paused when one of the grunts Malick sent along raised his rifle. “You’re gonna pay for what you did to her,” he said more sedately.

Grant only went on grinning. “Yeah, she paid me back _real_ well. That was one hell of a week.”

Fitz’s expression fell. It was kind of pathetic really, that the hadn’t figured it out sooner.

“Oh, she never told you guys? About after Hall died?” Grant chuckled. “While you spent your bereavement leave doing-” he waved a hand- “whatever, Jemma spent hers doing me.”

Fitz made a run at him and Grant caught him easily, spinning him around to pin him painfully against the wall.

“Don’t be an idiot. And,” he added, leaning in close so Fitz couldn’t possibly miss him, “don’t take it out on me that you were too damn chicken to speak up and save her all that pain and suffering.”

He pushed him - _hard_ \- and backed off. Slowly, Fitz turned, murder in his eyes.

“You’re sick.”

Grant chuckled. He was worse than Simmons - at least her lame attempts were still insults, that was practically a compliment.

“Get them topside,” he ordered, noting that supposedly-Will’s expression hadn’t changed one bit at mention of Jemma’s pain and suffering. Grant put a tick in the inhuman column.

 


	65. after you kissed me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Yes Men" AU (soooooo AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shineyma prompted "things you said after you kissed me."

Her hands trail around his neck while she lowers herself to her heels and, when they reach his bare chest, lift away as if burned. “Sorry,” she says.

Grant doesn’t respond. He’s having some trouble making sense of … anything, really. He’s still stumbling over it being _Simmons_ at the door and not some overzealous maid who doesn’t know what the do not disturb sign means.

“Well, that was faster than I thought,” Lorelei says. From the direction of her voice, she’s still lounging on the bed where he left her.

The anger Grant felt at being interrupted just when Lorelei was _finally_ letting him get somewhere spikes - but this time it’s all directed at her. He doesn’t love her anymore, doesn’t even want her.

Before he can figure out how to play this, Simmons pushes past him into the room, her face set like she plans on taking down an Asgardian all by her lonesome.

“Really?” she demands, setting her hands on her hips.

Lorelei rolls to a sitting position with her legs crossed delicately and her hands braced on either side of her in a way that shows off her bare breasts to their best advantage. “How did you find me so quickly?” Her smile brightens. “Or have you been studying?”

Simmons jerks her chin towards the nightstand. On it is Grant’s ICER. The dendrotoxin rounds have all been removed from the magazine and they almost glow in the dim light. Lorelei played with them, rolled each one between her fingers while she grilled him about the team. At the time, it was all Grant could do to control himself while he watched her, now he feels sick just thinking about it.

“I felt you scrying. A little heavy-handed, wasn’t it?”

Lorelei shrugs. “We can’t all be Amora.”

The name means nothing to Grant but it makes Simmons flinch. Lorelei’s haughty expression softens and she stands. Grant drags Simmons back before she can get close to her.

“Oh, isn’t that sweet?” Lorelei laughs. “He thinks he needs to protect you from me. Tell me, Grant, how do you think she cured you of your devotion to me? Perhaps it was the same way she cured you of your berserker rage.” She tosses that last dig over her shoulder on her way to the minibar.

“Simmons?” Grant asks softly.

“I didn’t cure you of the rage,” she says, her head turning just far enough in his direction she can see his bare feet but not his face. “I told you, it stood to reason that a little physical release would-”

“‘Stood to reason’?” Lorelei crows. “As if she’s never bedded a berserker before! Take a little pride in your conquests, sister!”

Grant’s not sure which of them startles worse at the word but Simmons is sure to have bruises on her arm tomorrow from how tight his grip is. Or she _should_ , whether that’s possible has suddenly come up for debate.

“Sister?” he echoes.

Slowly, Simmons lifts her face to him. “Yes,” she breathes.

Grant lets her go and falls back a step. His heel strikes the still-open door and he thinks he should close it. He and Lorelei are undressed down to their pants and if he’s gonna wring Simmons’ pretty little neck, he really doesn’t want an audience.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her tone pleading. “I swear, I came as soon as I had an idea where you were.”

“You’re an Asgardian?” SHIELD doesn’t know. If they did, he would too. Which means she’s been keeping this secret from everyone - keeping it through _everything_. She could’ve warned them about Lorelei, maybe even given them some advantage that would’ve kept Grant from being _fucking possessed_. And the berserker staff, she knew how dangerous that was - hell, she probably didn’t even need them going to that asshole Randolph to identify it. He runs his hands through his hair and turns away, kicking the door shut as he goes. The Chitauri virus. Was she ever even in danger from that? God, he dove out of a plane for _nothing_.

He can hear Simmons breathing behind him, short gasps as she thinks better of whatever defense she might offer. His cover demands he forgive her, cajole her and act like her friend, but all Grant wants to do is hit her.

No, that’s not true. He wants to hit _Lorelei_. That urge doesn’t fade when she breaks the silence.

“You should have let me keep him. He’ll betray you in the end. He’s no more worthy than Tiryn was.”

“Don’t. You. Dare.”

Grant’s lived with Simmons for nine months now and he has _never_ heard her use that tone before, not on anyone. She’s stepped over the fallen duffel bags he left at the door and, in her rage, looks more like Lorelei than he would’ve thought possible.

Lorelei rolls her eyes. “You’re not still angry about that, are you? He was a worthless foot soldier who never deserved your attention in the first place. And he broke your heart!”

“You made him carve his out of his own chest!”

“It was better than he deserved!”

Grant’s a specialist. Trained for life or death situations. Desensitized to the horrors of the world so he can go in and put a stop to them (or, if he’s working for HYDRA that day, make them worse), but something about Lorelei and Simmons staring each other down is enough to have him stumbling back a step.

Lorelei’s anger breaks first, lowering to a faint simmer behind her sadness. “Is that why you abandoned me?”

“Abandoned you?”

Grant breathes a little easier. That sounds more like the Simmons he knows. Who, obviously, has been a lie all this time, but he’s not really one to judge. Mostly he’s worried about being collateral damage when who alien sisters start going at it.

“You never came to my trial. Never visited during the centuries I was locked away-”

“I was gone!” Simmons yells. “Between you and Amora, I couldn’t even walk down the street without someone whispering about how I was sure to raise an army of my own soon.” She paces to the bed and sits with her head in her hands. “I didn’t even know you’d been imprisoned until Sif arrived yesterday.”

Grant feels like a voyeur watching Lorelei kneel on the mattress next to Simmons and wrap her in her arms. This is a private moment - and one he envies more than he’ll ever admit. He’s got his own missing sibling. He doesn’t know if Thomas is alive or safe. He could be locked away in some nine by nine cell right this minute for all Grant knows.

Simmons clings tight to Lorelei but it’s only a few minutes before her chin hardens and her spine stiffens. “Leave.”

Lorelei jerks back as if struck.

“I won’t tell Sif where you are but you have to go.”

Lorelei brushes a lock of Simmons’ hair over her ear. “Between the two of us, we could conquer this world.”

Simmons’ eyes close and she looks like she’s fighting tears. “ _Leave_.”

Lorelei huffs out a breath and steps off the bed. She finds her vest easy enough and pulls it on, not bothering to button it back up. When she nears the door, her gaze falls on Grant. Hate wells up in him and his skin crawls from the proximity. Just a few minutes ago he was desperate to bury himself inside her and now she makes him feel sick.

“A pity,” she sighs. “It’s been centuries since we shared a man. I would have like to know which of us he preferred.”

“Don’t,” Simmons warns.

Lorelei shrugs carelessly and steps out the door. A faint, “I love you” can be heard before it closes behind her.

“I love you too,” Simmons says even more softly.

Grant still has no idea what to do here, so he stays where he is and waits for Simmons to make a move.

“I know,” she says after a few seconds. She throws her head back and some of her hair shakes free of the elastic. “I just set my evil big sister loose on the men of Las Vegas. And I don’t expect you to understand why I did it or why I kept my identity from the team but-”

“She’s your sister,” Grant says. He’s still pissed as all hell that she didn’t say something sooner (and that he jumped out of the damn plane for her) but this is the right play. He crosses the room to sit beside her and runs his hand up and down her back. It only takes two strokes before she’s leaning into him.

The feel of her hair on his bare chest reminds him of the last time they were in a hotel room together, when his blood was still boiling from the berserker staff and she offered her assistance to help him work through it. His body’s all too quick to respond, still keyed-up from his make-out session with Lorelei.

Who is Simmons’ _sister_. That is gonna take a _lot_ of getting used to.

“I’m sorry I kept it from you. I’m sorry I let her hurt you-”

“Hey, hey.” He grips her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. His skin goes cold where she’d been resting against it and he ignores the discomfort. “You’re not responsible for the things your family does. Trust me on that; I know what I’m talking about.”

Her mouth drops open slightly.

“What?” he asks, worried he’s made a misstep bringing up his own past.

“I just- I don’t think anyone’s ever told me that before.”

Oh, hell. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close again. “Did she hurt you?” he asks, thinking of his own childhood.

She shakes her head against his shoulder. “ _That_ plenty of people have asked - and no. Lorelei was always kind to me, defended me from Mother’s disappointment and Amora’s taunting.”

“Who’s Amora?” Grant asks, though he already has an idea.

“Our eldest sister. She’s more powerful than Lorelei. Last I heard she was making a habit of trying to overthrow Odin.”

Grant really, really hopes that sister never shows up on Earth. Lorelei was bad enough. “And Tyrin?” he asks after a brief hesitation.

Simmons tenses in his arms and this time leans back herself. “He was a berserker,” she says to her hands in her lap. “We were in love - for a little while. He never cared about … them.” She looks to the door and is silent for several seconds before dragging in a deep breath. “We both knew it was over but that didn’t stop it hurting when he left.” She sighs heavily. “She could never forgive anyone hurting me.”

All of a sudden she turns and her hand hovers over his heart. “She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

“Just my pride.” That doesn’t mean it would’ve stopped there though. Now that he’s free of her, he recognizes the interest she took in the one night stand he shared with Simmons. If she hadn’t shown up to rescue him, would Lorelei have decided he took advantage of her little sister and gotten some revenge on her behalf?

She knows about HYDRA. _He’ll betray you_ , she said, and Grant doesn’t think she meant by cheating.

He pats Simmons’ shoulder, letting some of his usual awkwardness sink back into his mannerisms. “I’m gonna call the others,” he says. “We’ll figure out something to tell them.”

“What?” she asks dully.

“You never told us because you’re trying to stay hidden, right? I’m not gonna screw that up for you if I can help it. Plus,” he adds while he stands, “I doubt Sif’s gonna take you letting Lorelei go too well. Just leave the cover story to me, okay?”

He ignores the hotel phone and grabs a burner from his duffel before heading into the bathroom. He needs a few minutes to figure out what his cover story’s gonna _be_  but more than that he needs privacy. His first call’s gonna be to his HYDRA contacts, letting them know there’s a situation in the southwest region that needs cleaning up ASAP. Then Coulson and _then_ he’ll get back to Simmons.

He’s severely misjudged her. That’s not only dangerous in his line of work but it’s a huge blow to his pride - bigger than the one Lorelei dealt him. He plans on spending every second between now and the team’s arrival working her over, dragging every last bit of intel from her. When he’s done, he won’t just know her deepest, darkest secret, he’ll know them all.

 


	66. roswell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fusion with the TV show Roswell. Because why not? (You shouldn't have to be at all familiar with that to understand this.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from safelycapricious: things you said to me in your dreams.

After Skye skips into her room, Melinda practically drags Grant downstairs and into the den. It’s got thick walls to make up for the kickass sound system he installed two summers ago and is as far from Skye’s bedroom as they can get without going outside. Grant kind of wishes this were something they could go outside for.

“This is a problem,” Melinda says the second the door is shut behind them.

Grant drops onto one of the ancient sofas and sinks so far into it he feels like he’s sitting on the ground. “Yeah,” he agrees, “but it’s the same problem we’ve had for weeks now. Mr. Coulson hasn’t exposed us, there’s no reason to think his daughter will.”

Melinda doesn’t seem impressed with that logic. “I want you to walk her.”

Grant’s glad he decided to sit down, it saves him the shame of falling on his ass. “You didn’t make me walk him.”

“I didn’t think it was necessary - and it hasn’t been.”

That’s bull. She didn’t make him walk Coulson because the guy’s had a crush on her since the day he moved to town. And, okay, maybe a little because the entire reason he found out they’re aliens is that Skye did him the tiny favor of  _bringing him back from the dead_. (Which, for the record, she got in _zero_ trouble for just because she’s the reincarnation of their queen. If Grant had brought some human back from the dead, Melinda would’ve cut off his head. She would’ve grown a new body for him afterward, but still. Decapitation isn’t fun.)

Melinda’s got her General face on, which Grant figures means the only way he gets out of this is to go upstairs and make Skye overrule her. Since that’ll only end with Melinda grounding Grant for the rest of forever, he takes the avoidance route.

“I can’t dreamwalk someone unless I’ve got a-”

Melinda produces a wallet-sized photo of Jemma from her pocket. It’s worn around the edges and a few years old. Grant guesses it came from Mr. Coulson’s wallet - and immediately decides to never ever think about how Melinda got close enough to him to get at it.

He snatches it out of her hand and stretches out on the couch. He’s vaguely aware of her pulling one of the beanbag chairs over but his consciousness is already slipping away.

He’s at school. One of the smaller classrooms attached to the university’s gym and typically used for Health 101 classes by the 90% of the student body who take it for an easy gen ed fulfillment. Jemma’s sitting in the desk in front of him and, like everyone else, she’s busy filling in scantron bubbles. Only, unlike everyone else, every so often her attention drifts to the guy at the front of the room. It’s Grant.

He remembers this day; he was proctoring a midterm for extra credit with one of the coaches - but he doesn’t remember Jemma being there. When dream-him wanders over to the other side of the room, the girl in the desk next to Jemma’s casually holds up her test and points meaningfully to a diagram of someone performing CPR. Jemma pinkens.

“Jemma?” dream-Grant calls. The scantrons are gone and the same diagram from the test is suddenly on the chalkboard, along with a list of steps.

This is what Grant hates about being in other people’s dreams. In his own, the sudden shifts and changes make perfect sense - or at least he doesn’t get blindsided by them. He really hopes Jemma at least stays in this one room for the rest of hers.

“You wanna come up and help me demonstrate for the class?” dream-Grant asks. It’s a completely stupid question because the second Jemma clears the front row of desks, everyone outside the three of them disappears.

Grant sets his jaw and reminds himself this is a _mission_. It’s his job to protect Skye so that one day she can go home and retake the throne. If Jemma Coulson is gonna screw that up, he needs to find out now before she can do any damage.

She hops up on the edge of the table at the front of the room and looks at dream-Grant, her eyes frightened-doe wide. He steps up in front of her and slowly wraps a hand around the back of her neck to lower her down onto the table.

Grant stands, both because he can’t see anything from where he is and because he just _needs to move_. The tension Jemma’s feeling is seeping into his skin and it’s making him antsy.

The other him is reciting the CPR steps like he’s reading them out of a book but that is clearly not his focus. Or Jemma’s, since this _is_ her dream. He’s still bent low over her and his hand hasn’t moved from her neck. He uses it to shift her head into the correct position and then-

“You’re not human,” Jemma says, her voice oddly loud in the empty room.

Dream-Grant freezes. “Does that frighten you?” he asks. His hand slides around to rest threateningly against her collarbone. His eyes go impossibly wide and turn an inky black. His skin darkens and ripples. His features distort until he looks like nothing human at all.

Grant takes a half-step forward before stopping himself. What does he think he’s gonna do? Save her from her _dream_? And this is why he’s here, to see just how scared of them she really is.

Though he’s gotta say, he’s deeply insulted by her subconscious view of him. He knows genius Jemma Coulson was never gonna notice a jock like him - even with her jump in grades they’re still years apart - but he’s always been damn proud of his looks.

“No,” she says, surprising him as much as his doppelganger. ( _Former_ doppelganger. They are _nothing_ alike at the moment.) She reaches up to touch his face. “Humans can be plenty dangerous without being aliens, I don’t see why where you’re from should make any difference. I know I can trust you.”

“You do?” Grant asks and bites his tongue for being so stupid. It’s not like she’s gonna-

“I always have,” she says. He’d almost be able to convince himself she didn’t hear him at all (she _shouldn’t_ hear him at all) but she looks worried dream-him doesn’t believe her. There’s something else there too, in the way she’s looking at him, and she’s still touching his face and-

Oh, shit.

Grant gasps awake and Melinda’s right there, catching his hand and talking to him so he knows where he is. She gives him a few minutes to compose himself and he needs every second he can get to figure out what he’s gonna say - because there is no way in hell he’s telling his commanding officer that Jemma Coulson’s not a problem because she’s in love with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is a follow-up to this one.


	67. roswell (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sequel to the Roswell chapter (hence the title). Written for the prompt "things you said when you were scared" and for wswinter's POV theme.

“But when they figure out she’s not an alien, they’ll let her go,” Leo says. “Right?”

Nobody meets his eyes, not even his dad, who’s still looking out the window like he expects Jemma to just walk up to the house any second. She’s been gone for eight hours. The sun’s come up in that time, but today doesn’t look any brighter than last night.

“Can’t you do something?” Leo demands. “You guys have got all these powers! Can’t you-”

“We don’t even know who took her or where they might have taken her,” Melinda says, projecting calm.

“Leo-” Skye says, reaching for him to offer comfort. He brushes her off and paces the living room. Skye turns her attention to Mr. Coulson’s back. “We’re not magic. We can’t just wave our hands and know where she is. I- I’m so sorry.”

Leo doesn’t even look like he hears her, which only makes Skye wilt even more. She curls up next to Grant on the couch, not close enough to get the comfort she really wants, but not so far away as to be really appropriate for a queen and her royal guard. Grant uses the way he has to angle his body to get his wallet out of his back pocket as an excuse to shift closer to her and she readily moves her head to rest on his shoulder.

She’s taking Jemma’s kidnapping hard. She was with her when the men in suits showed up, but Grant thinks it’s more than that. If Skye hadn’t made the rash decision to save Coulson’s life, no one would be sniffing around for evidence of the paranormal and Jemma would be safe at home right now. (She’d also be an orphan, but Skye’s probably not thinking about that part of it.)

“What’s that?” Skye asks.

Grant doesn’t bother to answer since what he’s just pulled out of his wallet is obviously a photo of Jemma. It’s the same one Melinda gave him to use a few weeks ago (he never bothered giving it back) and, if her expression is anything to go by, she recognizes it.

“I can try to walk her,” he says.

“You don’t even know if she’s asleep,” Melinda points out.

“What do you mean ‘walk her’?” Coulson asks.

Grant suddenly finds himself the center of attention. Everyone’s gathered around, looming over him and it’s almost enough to make him lose his nerve, but then he looks at Skye, at her red-rimmed eyes and her dry cheeks because she’s trying so damn hard to be strong even though her best friend is probably being-

Grant swallows, fixes his eyes on the photo. “I can get inside people’s dreams. If she’s asleep-”

“ _If_ ,” Melinda says.

“-I can get in her head, maybe talk to her.”

“You’ve never communicated with a dreamer before,” Skye says softly, like she’s daring to hope that _maybe_ …

“I think I did once. With Jemma.” He looks from Skye to Melinda and wills himself not to think about the way Coulson’s brow is furrowing. (The guy may be only human but this is his _daughter_.) “It’s worth a shot.”

“Okay,” Melinda says. “You want some privacy?”

Yes. He definitely wants privacy for this, but the Coulsons will feel better if they can watch.

“Nah, I’m good.” Grant fingers the worn edge of the photograph and lets his head fall back against the couch. Skye presses her forehead to his shoulder, giving him an extra jolt of power. She’s not supposed to do that, but Grant keeps his mouth shut about it.

Jemma’s not asleep. That much is obvious right away. But she’s also not _not_ asleep. He can feel her, like he always does when he walks someone, but he doesn’t slip easily into her subconscious. This is like hacking through thick brush. Thick, clingy brush that’s completely invisible in a thick fog.

He can hear breathing, heavy and wet, and moves towards it. All at once the fog opens up and there’s Jemma, lying prone on the floor with her back to a wall. When Grant tries to take a look around, that fog is still everywhere. Everything he can see is white white _white_ \- except Jemma. She’s still wearing the blue dress she wore to the bonfire last night - the one that had him avoiding her for fear he’d risk doing something he couldn’t take back. It’s torn and bloody. There’s a spot of red at the corner of her mouth and some discoloration, like she’s been struck.

This isn’t a dream.

“Jemma?” Grant asks, dropping to his knees over her. “Jemma!”

Her glassy eyes refocus on him and around him the fog shifts, thinning and thickening in time with the dilation of her pupils. “Grant?” she asks, but it comes out slurred.

“I’m not really here,” he apologizes, brushing his hand over her cheek. He can’t really feel her skin, only the idea of it under his knuckles. “Do you know where you are?”

She shakes her head incrementally. “Nuh-” The sound, not even the complete word (God, what’d they do to her?) drags out of her.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say.”

“ _Not. Sure_ ,” she forces out before he can ask for other details. “You-” She closes her eyes against the sloshing off the fog. Grant has to do the same.

“What about me?” he asks when it stops.

She shakes her head again and lifts her hand off the cold tile, pointing over his shoulder. He looks and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

His boss, John Garrett, is standing over him. His face blocks out the bright lights overhead and his oily smile is sharp. “You’re gonna tell me everything, little girl. About your daddy, about _what you are_. And if you don’t-” His hand is around Grant’s throat, not tight enough to choke him, but enough to cut his air flow down to a minimum, enough it’s clear he could do so much more. “I’ll carve the answers out of you.”

Grant whimpers, grasping at Garrett’s wrist, only his hands won’t move the way he wants. They slip and fumble and there’s no strength in them at all and that terrifies him more than the hungry anger in Garrett’s eyes.

“Will you knock it off?” another voice asks. Garrett drops Grant with a little more force than necessary and his head scrapes painfully against the wall. When he lands on the ground, he doesn’t get back up. “There’s plenty of time for that if the drugs don’t work, but for now, I’d prefer you not damage the subject.”

Grant knows that voice, he just can’t place it through the swimming in his brain. He’s lucky he could make out as much of the conversation as he did. It fades into white noise as the fog closes in on all sides. There’s nothing but the pain and the fog and the cool of the tiles under him.

Under _her_.

He turns back around and there are tears swimming in Jemma’s eyes. It reminds him of Skye, waiting - waiting and safe back at Jemma’s house. He’s gonna get Jemma there if it kills him.

“Garrett has you,” he says.

Her nod is even shorter than when she shook her head.

That doesn’t make any sense. Garrett runs a private security agency. What’s he doing kidnapping people?

There’s a sound, loud in the emptiness, and Grant can feel a shadow looming up behind him. His nerves are on edge and Jemma’s curling in on herself as much as she’s able.

“Hello, sweetheart.” The second man kneels over her and runs his hand over her cheek the same way Grant tried to. “Feeling more talkative now?”

“Jemma,” Grant says - _begs_ , “we’re coming for you, okay? Just be strong a little while longer. I’m coming.”

She closes her eyes, cringing back from the hands pulling at her.

He wants to stay, to be with her through whatever comes next because he’s not sure he can reestablish this connection once he drops it, but it’s the best thing for her is if he leaves and tells the others what he’s learned. That doesn’t make it any easier to go.

He gasps awake. Melinda catches his face in her hands to talk him down and her fingers brush the cold tear tracks on his cheeks. Skye’s still right beside him and has got his hand between both of hers. The Coulsons are standing by, obviously holding their breath for whatever he’s about to report, so he fights through the disorientation and the screaming, bad trip feeling at the edges of his thoughts and says, “Ian Quinn. He’s got her.” He words nearly choke him but he forces himself to keep going, gasping out syllables when what he wants is to vomit. “Him and John Garrett. I don’t know where-”

Mr. Coulson’s already gone, heading for his office to do God only knows what. Grant nods, knowing Melinda wants to follow. She passes him off to Skye and he collapses in her lap the way he used to do in Melinda’s when he was a little kid, still learning to use his powers. That was the worst it’s been in a long, long time - hell, it’s _never_ been that bad before - and he knows whatever he’s feeling, Jemma’s got it a hundred times worse.

Leo takes Melinda’s seat on the edge of the coffee table, the question he wants to ask clear on his face. Grant doesn’t know what he’s gonna tell him about what’s been done to his sister, but his tongue’s still heavy and awkward in his mouth so he keeps it short for now.

“I’m gonna kill them,” he says. Skye tenses but Leo’s stony face shows nothing but agreement. “Whatever it takes. I promise.”

 


	68. when you were scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uprising AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over on tumblr keepcalmandwhutnow requested "things you said when you were scared" for a happy biospec fic. I only half-succeeded at the happy.

“Are you all right?” Grant asks.

Jemma thinks she should be asking _him_ that, seeing as Grant’s the one who just fought his way through a dozen men. He’s standing as strong and steady as ever, but his shoulder is braced firmly against the door to the cockpit and his tranquil expression reminds her more of the eye of a storm than anything.

The pilot’s body slips from his grasp, falling to the quinjet’s floor with a sickeningly wet thump. Jemma presses a hand to the tiny head in her lap and covers the sound with a whispered “It’s all right, love.”

“ _Are you?_ ” Grant presses. His bloody hands are held almost painfully wide, like he’s preventing himself from fisting them. “Did they-” His eyes drop to her lap and the tranquility breaks, giving way to heart-wrenching fear. “Did they hurt you?”

“She’s _fine_ ,” Jemma says and shifts Rose to rest against her chest. The uprising came at the start of her afternoon nap and a mixture of fear and exhaustion has kept her in a half-doze ever since. She rouses occasionally - at loud noises or angry orders - but only to cry and cling tighter to Jemma before drifting back under. The circumstances being what they are, she’s deeply grateful Rose has been so unaware. “She’s only sleeping. No one laid a hand on her.”

“And you?” Grant asks. The genuine concern in his voice warms Jemma’s heart.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, “now.” Her skin is still buzzing with terror but exhaustion is creeping swiftly in. Grant’s here. No matter what there is between them, part of her will always know she’s safe in his presence.

He relaxes visibly and turns his attention to the bodies. “Come up front. I’ll open the doors once we’re in the air. Maybe it’ll distract them a little.”

Jemma’s stomach, already churning from the smells of assorted bodily fluids trapped in the confined space, roils anew. She pushes it down and shifts Rose to her hip to stand. It’s a crude but effective way of dealing with the dead and she can’t say she hates it. Shamefully, her only worry when Grant began killing his way through these men was that Rose not see. She didn’t feel the slightest sympathy for them as they died and she feels none now. Yesterday, these were her friends and colleagues. Today, they’re traitors who would have imprisoned her and her child. She doesn’t care what happens to their remains.

“Jemma?” Grant asks, his voice oddly tight.

She hasn’t moved. She shakes off her thoughts and picks her way carefully through the carnage, keeping Rose’s face pressed gently but firmly to her neck just in case she stirs.

When Grant would usher her into the cockpit, she pauses to clutch at the front of his tac vest. He brutally killed those men, tore through them with all the lethal skill of a specialist, and he did so in front of their daughter. He used to have enough trouble with Jemma tending his injuries or seeing him still fresh from a mission, but to have Rose actually  _present_ for what is surely one of his bloodiest acts …

“Thank you,” she says. “I know that was difficult for you, but thank you.”

He takes a half-step closer and his hands reach for her. Before he can touch her, his eyes land on Rose and he stalls, his face blanking. Jemma _hates_ that expression. She used to catch fleeting glimpses of it in the years they were together, but it seemed to be fixed on his face the night seven months ago when he appeared at her door. He refused to allow her to wake Rose and instead stood half the night outside her bedroom as if fearful that by simply crossing the threshold he would do her harm. Only later did she learn the mission he’d been on that day had ripped through him, left him with an abundance of rage and all his worst memories laid bare.

She touches his face. “She didn’t see.”

He nods, his eyes still fixed firmly on Rose. Jemma takes her into the cockpit and busies herself strapping in. It takes Grant nearly a minute to join her and when he does, he presses a pistol into her hand. She wraps her fingers around the grip, taking comfort in the weight of it. She doesn’t waste energy hoping she won’t have cause to use it.

While Grant brings the nose up, Jemma hums a lullaby to drown out the faintly wet sound of flesh sliding along grated metal. Rose sighs, oblivious to it all and Jemma tries not to cling too tightly as Grant weaves them artfully through the fire from the base below.

“Is John with them?” Jemma asks once they’re flying safely in the shadow of the plane Grant fondly calls “the Bus.” “With Coulson’s team?” Rose will be overjoyed to see Grant, but John is like a grandfather to her and has always had a keen talent for distracting her from the realities of the work they do. And, truthfully, it will ease Jemma’s nerves to have one more person she cares for nearby.

Grant’s hand spasms over the controls and Jemma notices he’s wearing his wedding ring again. She curls her own left hand to feel the empty space hers once occupied.

“No,” he says heavily. “John- John was HYDRA.”

Jemma doesn’t know which hits her harder, the _HYDRA_ or the _was_. His won’t be the last betrayal, but it might be the worst. She reaches across the space between them to wrap her hand around Grant’s on the yoke. He startles a little at the contact but doesn’t shake her off.

She allows her eyes to close. Soon the world will press in on her again, the struggle for survival in the face of HYDRA’s uprising will demand her focus, but for the moment she has Rose, she has Grant; they’re all she needs.

 


	69. at the kitchen table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even more 3b (well, more like season 4) speculative fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SapphireGlyphs prompted "things you said at the kitchen table" and then Amy and I were talking and this happened.

Jemma’s had a difficult year. A difficult _several_ years, if she’s being quite honest. Sometimes she regrets going into the field at all (not that she will _ever_ give Fitz the satisfaction of admitting it). But the last few months have been worse than any before and she’s fallen into a habit of keeping odd hours to better avoid the others. She takes her breakfast early - earlier than even May - and is in bed well before movie nights can start.

It’s easier this way. No one has to feel awkward or worry over the weight she still hasn’t regained or struggle to find something to say that will help her through her grief. And, even nearly a year after her return from the planet, the early morning quiet is still much more welcome than the bustle of the day.

She doesn’t even mind her frequent breakfast companion anymore. He keeps his distance and his silence. The most interaction they’ve had since she pronounced him free of Maveth’s control is the occasional dance when their paths cross between the toaster and the cereal cupboard.

If someone had told her six months ago that she would willingly share space with Grant Ward, she would have called them mad. But that was before she lost hope. Again. So long as Ward continues his current streak of good behavior (“good” being a relative term describing his newfound affinity for murdering HYDRA agents left and right in retribution for his time trapped in his own skin), she sees no reason to put in the effort of killing him.

That said, she’s slightly worried when he slips into the seat across from her. Neither of them has a preferred seat in the dining hall but they _do_ have an unspoken rule to keep their distance from one another. All these weeks, they’ve never so much as sat at the same table and all of a sudden he’s plopped down right in front of her? This can’t be good and not good, coming from Ward, is likely to result in a renewal of her promise to kill him.

Should she be feeling tired at the prospect of having to kill him? That doesn’t sound right. Reluctant from a moral standpoint maybe or angry that he’s tricked them, but _tired_?

“I’m not sorry I tried to kill you,” he says over his yogurt. “And I know you’re not sorry you tried to kill me. But I think we should agree to put all that behind us and have sex.”

After that abrupt interruption to her thoughts, it takes her a moment to get them restarted. When she manages it and replays her memory of his statement, she discovers that yes, he did say what she thought he said.

“What?” she asks, only sounding a fraction as indignant as she wants to.

He stirs the tiny cup. “You’re still giving Fitz the cold shoulder-”

“I’m _griev_ -”

“-and you’re heartbroken over that Will guy. You’re sad, yeah, but I think you’re angry too; you just need a no-strings-attached way to express it.”

She meets his near-constant, mildly condescending smile (how has he managed to turn it _seductive_?) with a glare. “And what’s in this for you?”

“Other than the sex?”

She kicks out and her toes barely scrape his calf. He laughs and it’s a warm sound in the early morning chill.

“I miss Kara,” he says with a touch of earnestness. “And I’ve got my own anger issues. Besides, it’s just one more way to enjoy having my own body again.” He slips his spoon into his mouth and takes his time sucking off the yogurt. “So? What d’you say?”

There’s no question of whether or not she should. This is _Ward_. She shouldn’t be trusting him with a dull spoon, let alone in her bed. But that flare of anger she felt when she lashed out at him … that felt _good_.

Ever since Will failed to return with the others, she’s felt like she’s wrapped in cotton. Her friends, the world, even her own emotions are all very far from her. But with only a few words Ward was able to anger her - to _truly_ anger her, not just the expected antagonism she draws up for appearance sake whenever Maveth is mentioned.

Of course, one occurrence does not necessitate more.

She pointedly moves aside her eggs and cup of tea to fold her arms in their place. Ward watches curiously but makes no comment.

She leans slightly over the table and he raises an eyebrow at the silent challenge in the gesture. “Kiss me,” she says.

He tips his head to one side with false confusion. “Not exactly what I asked for.”

There’s that anger again, but wrapped up in it is a familiar fondness that only grows when he anticipates her kick and catches her ankle between his calves.

“I let you get away with one,” he says, holding up a finger for effect.

She jerks her leg back to her side of the table and he lets it go with little effort. “I need to know if we’re compatible,” she explains, bringing them back to the matter at hand. “Physically.”

His eyes drop to her chest and she regrets her choice of blouse. It’s one of her comfiest but also has one of her lowest collars.

“You used to patch me up all the time back on the Bus,” he says, his tone deceptively conversational. “Your hands on my chest, my stomach, my thigh…”

Her mouth suddenly dry, she swallows.

He catches the movement of her throat and slowly draws his eyes back up to her face. “I think we’re compatible.”

She opens her mouth to protest - she needs _facts_ not hypotheses.

“But if you need a reminder,” he says and swoops across the table before she can react.

He catches her with her mouth still open and his tongue slips inside as though she’d invited it, giving her a taste of his strawberry yogurt. His hand cups her head in exactly the right way, providing her with something steady to lean into and preventing her from pulling back if she had a mind to. Not that she does. He’s pouring heat and feeling back into her after months of icy winter and she’s all too eager to drink it up.

He eases back, finishing things with a nip to her lower lip and fingers that trail enticingly along her jaw. “So?” he asks once he’s back in his seat. He scrapes the bottom of his yogurt cup and takes another mouthful.

She busies her hands replacing her plate and cup in front of her. The eggs, when she takes a bite, have gone cold. “I go to bed early,” she says, cutting them into pieces with the side of her fork. “So someone’s sure to notice if we’re sneaking into each other’s rooms.” Even with her focus still on her plate, she can see him revving up to argue his point and hurries to cut him off. “We’ll have to meet in the mornings, when everyone’s already asleep.”

She spears a square of egg and slips it in her mouth as she looks up. He’s grinning eagerly. “An early morning workout?”

She smiles at the joke. “I suppose so.”

He stands and leans over her. “See you tomorrow morning, Simmons,” he promises, his voice warm and rough. It sends a thrill through her unlike anything she’s felt since the planet. It warms her for the rest of the day.

 


	70. choke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: She choked on the words, dry throat working soundlessly in shock.
> 
> I spent SO LONG on this fic and it's so short for all of that ... I don't even care anymore.

She choked on the words, dry throat working soundlessly in shock. Bile followed, hot and raw and she swallowed it down in between gasps for air.

“Hey, hey.” Calloused hands smoothed her hair and a solid chest cushioned her head. “I’ve got you.” It was an echo of what Coulson had done for her on this very couch a few short weeks ago and anger welled up in her that he would use that memory on top of everything else.

She shoved at him but her body was still recovering from the shock and it wasn’t as though she would have been able to do much even at her best. Ward easily held her in his lap while the pain ebbed and her mind refocused on the moment.

“There we go. That’s better.” He brought a cup of water to her lips and she twisted away; she wasn’t a _child_. She was, in point of  fact, a prisoner and would not have her circumstances dictated to her where she could help it. He sighed and set the cup back on the floor. “You wanna finish insulting me?” he asked.

“-idiot,” she said weakly, wrapping up her earlier assessment of his character.

“Worth the wait,” Ward said solemnly. She tried to jerk out of his hold, but only succeeded in landing more deeply in it. “Ah ah ah,” he chided. “Play nice.”

“What was it this time?” Garrett’s booming voice demanded and, for once, Jemma willingly curled deeper into Ward’s arms. They tightened around her immediately, like a snake wrapping around its prey, tighter every time they exhaled. He pinched her gently.

“Garrett asked you a question, Jemma.”

She winced at the use of her first name and considered, despite herself, lying. Perhaps she could pull it off, perhaps she could avoid the triumph she knew would follow the truth. But of course, she couldn’t. Even lying to untrained civilians was too much for her; lying to operatives trained in the art of deception? She just wasn’t capable of it.

“Sarajevo,” she said softly into Ward’s shoulder.

“About damn time,” Garrett said. The couch shifted, presumably under his weight, and she found herself being tugged just far enough from Ward to see him. “And what’d you think about that, princess?”

That he deserved it. That every ounce of pain he’d suffered that day was only a fraction of what he deserved for all the things he’d done since. 

Except she couldn’t say it. She hadn’t felt his pain - her visions didn’t work like that - but she knew it. She’d seen the terror and heartbreak of being left for dead - feelings that were only too familiar after her near death from the Chitauri virus and Fitz’s near abandonment in South Ossetia. 

She closed her eyes. She’d seen that too. While she was patching Ward up afterward, Jemma saw the moment he realized no help was coming and felt his sorrow, his _rage_. Months later, when they learned the name of Raina’s employer and Coulson encouraged her to confess her status as a member of the Index to the team, Jemma actually felt _guilty_  for all of the times she’d seen Ward’s memories while tending his wounds and _apologized_. Turns out he was storing up everything she told him to use against her.

“You’re a monster,” she said, but with only slightly more conviction than she’d called Ward an idiot.

Garrett laughed. “Yeah. But I’m a monster on the right side, and that little gift of yours is gonna prove it to you. Lynam!” 

A HYDRA soldier materialized from the kitchen, snapping to attention. 

“Get down to the lab, tell Raina Simmons needs a blood sample from you.”

“Sir!” Lynam practically ran for the stairs.

Garrett tucked some of Jemma’s hair behind her ear. “You, my little _clairvoyant_ -” he grinned over the word- “are gonna keep watching conversion moments from every HYDRA agent there is until you have one of your own.”

He stood - finally - and Jemma leaned into Ward’s chest, preferring the lesser of the two evils. Garrett chuckled at the sight and Jemma closed her eyes on the sound.

“Don’t worry,” Ward said once he was gone. His hand trailed slowly over her back and his heartbeat was reassuringly steady under her ear. “It won’t be too long now.”

With sympathy for a younger Garrett still churning in her gut, Jemma couldn’t help but worry he might be right.


	71. slim chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Turn, Turn, Turn" AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over on tumblr, astonishes sent me the first sentence prompt, "Is there even a small chance this ends well for either of us?" and it got a little longer than expected.

“Is there even a small chance this ends well for either of us?” Jemma asks lowly as she examines Grant’s bruised ribs.

She sounds so sad, so _hopeless_ \- hearing it only amplifies his own, similar feelings. Dammit all to hell, decades of carefully crafted lies and _now_ John loses the ability to play things close to the chest?

Grant slips off the edge of the exam table so he can reach past her to close the door, blocking them from the notice of any curious passersby.

“What-” she starts, already sounding about ready to rip him a new one for getting up mid-exam. He cuts her off by pulling her to him for the kiss he’s wanted to give her for weeks now. Her hands land against his chest and for the space between two heartbeats she _almost_ pushes him away, but then they’re sliding up around his neck to anchor her against him.

They’ve only kissed once before, in one of the storage pods the night after he was freed of Lorelei’s control. She seemed to understand that he needed to just _do something_ of his own free will and she let him use her for his own ends without protest. He hated himself for it afterward, as much because he’d used her the way Lorelei used him as because he’d let her go after only a few heated minutes.

He’s had three weeks to think about that kiss, to think about what he’d do differently if he was a little more in control, what more he’d do with a little more time. The exam table is higher than the tables in the lab, so he resigns himself to just pushing her up against it instead of lifting her onto it. She moans into his mouth and uses the stability to angle her body into his. Her hands move into his hair now that she doesn’t have to hold on, and her nails brush behind his ear.

“Ah!” he gasps. His hands spasm on her ribs, _so close_ to her breasts but the moment’s already broken.

“Did I hurt you?” she asks, twisting to get a better look.

“No,” he sighs, holding her in place while he puts a little distance between them. “I’m just ticklish.”

She wants to laugh, he can see it, but she’s kind enough not to - that, or she’s remembered too much of what’s going on to manage it.

“I suppose,” she says, slipping sideways out of his grasp, “that answers my question.”

He frowns, trying to remember what her question even _was_.

“We,” she says, “technically speaking, are fucked.”

He sighs out a laugh. “Yeah. Pretty much. I’m heading out with Garrett, to the Fridge.”

If they _are_ being monitored it sounds like a simple statement of his mission - escort the prisoner to lockup - but to him and to Jemma, it’s a plan. He’s sticking with John and, knowing John, he’s gonna head to the Cuba base after this. It’s an old favorite and it was formerly a SHIELD base, just the sort of place he’ll be drawn to under the circumstances. That’ll put them in striking distance of the Fridge and John’ll want to get there before any of the other Heads get things well enough under control to manage it.

“Do you know if Coulson has any plans?” he asks. “Do _you_?”

She hitches her hip against the exam room’s tiny sink. “I don’t know. The Hub’s still standing but does that mean SHIELD is? For all we know the work we’re doing to keep things together will all fall apart within the week.” She sighs. “But I think I’ll stick with Coulson, see where he leads. And of course there’s Fitz…”

Grant’s jaw ticks. Fitz is gonna get her killed. He’s an albatross around her neck, weighing her down, and she’s too damn attached to him to cut him loose already so she can run.

“It might be dangerous,” Grant says carefully. “Coulson’s not exactly stable these days.” It’s pushing it as far as keeping his cover goes, but it’s a point that has to be made. Whatever Coulson does in reaction to the uprising - whatever he calls on the team to do - is gonna be big, and Grant’s not gonna be there.

Jemma looks away from him. She’s trapped; not exposed by the uprising, but not free to leave for safer harbors either. He closes the distance between them again, this time only catching hold of her so he can speak softly into her ear.

“You get the chance to go, you _go_. Don’t bother with Fitz - _don’t_ ,” he insists when he feels her jaw drop open to argue. “He can’t come with you and you can’t stay.” He cradles her head in his hand, finally getting to feel just how soft her hair is and not getting to enjoy it at all. His lips brush the shell of her ear. “I’ll find you, I promise.” He kisses her temple as he pulls away.

Her eyes are closed and he thinks he can see tears sparkling under her lashes. Fuck it all _this_ is why he didn’t want to be on a team. He’s always had a problem with getting attached - and John _knew_ that, he’s _always_ known that, but he sent him anyway - and now he’s got this twisting pain in his gut just thinking about leaving Jemma behind.

“You’re cleared,” she says, her eyes still shut. “Tell Coulson I said-” she drags in a breath- “I said you’re okay for prisoner escort.”

If this were yesterday, he wouldn’t be. He’s more than a little banged up from that fight in the halls and any qualified SHIELD medic would bench him for at least a week - but this isn’t yesterday; SHIELD doesn’t have the resources anymore to let semi-able bodied men sit on the sidelines and Jemma’s not a qualified SHIELD medic, she’s a HYDRA plant giving him what he needs to get out, to _leave her behind_ in enemy territory.

That itches at him. It rings a little too much like South Ossetia, like Sarajevo, and Grant isn’t SHIELD, he doesn’t leave his people behind.

Except that John’s entire plan - his freedom, his _life_ \- depends on Grant following through here, and there’s no way to bring Jemma along for that.

There’s gotta be something else to say, something to make this better, but she cuts him off before he finds it.

“Please just go,” she says, finally looking at him again. She looks so desperate to have him _gone_ , that he moves for the door just to appease her.

“Take care of yourself,” he says while he pulls it open. It’s his own plea, that she do what he told her to and leave the others when she gets the chance. “I’ll see you later,” he says, an order more than a promise.

She smiles sadly and, as he lets the door shut between them, he has the gut-wrenching feeling the next he hears of her, it’ll be news that May’s put a bullet between her eyes. He pushes the thought aside, forces it into the box where he keeps all the distractions he can’t afford, and turns his feet towards the hanger, towards John.

 


	72. "I'm coming to get you"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shineyma prompted "Stay there. I'm coming to get you."

It takes nearly an hour of searching for Jemma to find her earpiece in the gravel surface of the roof. Her hand shakes when she slips it back in place and taps it to activate.

“H-hello? Can anyone hear me?” she asks, fighting even to hear her own voice over the sound of the wind.

There’s a pause - a painfully long one - and she’s nearly ready to try again when she finally hears, “Simmons?”

“Ward,” she practically sobs. “Thank God.”

“Simmons, where are you?”

“The roof.”

“Of the _Crown_?” Ward demands, sounding more than a little shocked when he names the hotel the team spent the day infiltrating in search of Centipede’s financial backers.

As she did lose consciousness, if only momentarily, she dares the slightest glance towards the edge to confirm before turning her focus right back to the roof in front of her. It hurts, laying on it as she has been while hunting for the earpiece, but standing is _not_ an option; she’ll stay right down here where she can’t see any of the distance between her and the ground.

“Yes,” she says. She could see the yellow bricks of the university set against the gulf between the two largest mountains crowding the city towards the coast. That view is only possible, at this altitude, from the Crown.

“Fuck,” Ward says and his breathing picks up in her ear. “Are you okay?”

She laughs. She’s on the roof of the tallest skyscraper in this country, of course she’s not okay.

“Are you hurt?” Ward amends. His voice has developed an echo.

“Where are you?” she asks. Then, realizing what’s missing from this conversation, “Where are the others? Are they hurt?”

“I asked first.”

She purses her lips and glances at the dark shape closer to the edge of the roof, only to immediately look away. “A little, but nothing I can’t walk off.” The side of her face is aching from where she was struck and she imagines she can still feel the shock of landing flat on her back in the gravel, though the impact knocked her unconscious for the immediate burst of pain. There’s also a tightness to her left ankle that’s a little worrisome, but she’d have to take off her boot to check it and she likely shouldn’t do that until she’s ready to have it wrapped.

“You sound like me,” Ward huffs.

She smiles a little. If their positions were reversed, she wouldn’t be content with such an assessment of his injuries and has often demanded a more thorough report even mid-mission. But their positions _aren’t_ reversed and she needs to know about the others.

“Your turn,” she says.

“The others are fine. They’re back on the Bus, trying to track that chopper we thought you were on.”

That does explain why it’s been so long with no one coming to rescue her.

“Well, I was on board,” she says, hoping that might make up for some of the trouble.

“‘Was’?” Ward echoes.

“For a few minutes. Just for the initial lift into the air.” Her stomach, already in knots from her position, tightens at the memory. Her captors weren’t expecting her to fight back once they left the ground, affording her the opportunity to reach the door and jump out.

“ _Jemma_ ,” Ward says. It’s not the first time he’s used her given name, but to hear him say it for the same reasons Coulson does - because he’s worried for her - takes the usual thrill out of it.

“I’m fine,” she says, as much to convince herself as him. “What about you? You sound like you’re out of breath.”

He sighs and when he speaks the echoing quality of his voice is gone. “Blake’s here. He took over the teams on the ground hunting for Centipede. I took the stairs up a few floors so no one will notice me hopping into an elevator.”

“Why? Shouldn’t you let them know-”

“Do you really want a whole team of heavily armed agents rushing up there?”

She takes a deep breath and thinks about lifting herself up off the ground so she’ll be standing to greet them. She doesn’t move.

“That’s what I thought,” he says when she doesn’t answer. “Listen, I’m gonna head into the elevator now.”

Jemma sighs. Something about the design of the elevator shafts completely cuts off comm usage while inside. She won’t be able to hear him again until he disembarks.

“Stay there,” he orders firmly. “If you can, try to focus on the horizon, it’ll help.”

She presses her hands to the ground and straightens her arms, but doesn’t follow through on the motion to lever herself into a stable sitting position.

“Jemma? I’m coming for you. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, and he’s gone.

She knows from her own trip up here that the lift takes a while to climb to the roof, but by the time Ward arrives, she’s only just managed to sit up far enough to see the mountains. He takes one look at her and then he’s sprinting across the roof. She nearly sobs again and gratefully leans into the comfort of his inspecting touch.

“Who did this to you?” he asks, holding her chin loosely to meet her eyes.

Her relief fades and she nods over his shoulder to the shadow staining the pale stretch of roof. Ward is on his feet again in a heartbeat, gun drawn and aimed at the fallen man.

“He’s dead,” Jemma says and sounds as sick as she feels. He fell with her and is the cause of her aching ankle. He was so focused on grabbing her that he didn’t stop to think about proximity, to think that by lunging at her as he was, by holding her down, he was leaving her all the room she needed to pull the pistol from inside his jacket. She saw the moment he realized his mistake, after the bullet was already lodged somewhere inside his chest; she doesn’t think she’ll ever forget it.

Ward, ever the overprotective sort, inspects the body despite her assurances. Once he’s certain the man is no threat, he returns and squats in front of her. “You gonna cry?”

He doesn’t say it meanly or judgmentally, as though she would be _less_ for feeling guilty, and that is all the worse. She shakes her head even as tears well in her eyes.

“Shit,” he says and pulls her to his chest.

It’s not long before the fire in her back is too much to ignore, even in favor of comfort for her ragged emotions and she’s forced to pull away. He keeps one hand on her arm and has her run down her injuries. He prods the ankle through the thick leather of her boot and echoes her own assessment that it’s better looked at once they’re in a position to wrap it, then has her lift her shirt so he can look at her back.

He hisses in a breath. “And you shot a guy after? Damn, Simmons.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“Yeah, well…” His hand brushes her exposed ribs, feather light, before falling away. “Here.” His cell phone appears over her shoulder. “You can call the team while I carry you downstairs.”

“I can walk.” Probably. She hasn’t exactly tried since her fall.

“And that’s why you haven’t moved more than an inch since I got here. Just make the call, Simmons.” And then he’s lifting her into his arms, leaving no room for argument.

It is far less enjoyable than she might have dreamed being carried by Ward would be. For one, there is no spot on her back where he can support her without causing her pain. For another, the moment she hears the worry in Fitz’s voice, tears sting at her eyes again. She does her best to explain what happened and leans into the warmth of Ward’s chest as the lift takes them ever closer to sure, solid ground.

 


	73. absently

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: an absent look or touch

The barrier turns transparent and Grant doesn’t bother hiding his shock. “Simmons.”

“Ward,” she returns, her voice clinical, dismissive. She sounds like most SciTech grads do when they talk to Operatives: haughty, superior; she never used to talk to him like that.

She’s purposefully not looking at him, keeping her attention on the tablet - not the one that controls his environment - in her hands. That’s new too. There was a time she had to fight to keep her eyes on her work and off his training sessions with Skye.

“I know Trip’s been caring for you, but he’s not precisely a physician. I’d like to update my files on your health.”

“All of a sudden?” Why not just do it herself all along if she cares so much about being thorough? “Coulson’s been keeping you busy, huh?”

She laughs humorlessly and cuts off too soon, one hand settling on her stomach. “Yes. You could say that.”

No. He was wrong. Not her stomach. Her hand’s higher than that, on her ribs.

He wants to ask her about that, but she gets back to business before he can. “When last I saw you, you’d just started ramming into the walls. There’s no record here of any further attempts on your own life, is that correct?”

She looks at him, finally, and he gives her the brightest smile he can without blowing his remorse play.

“Mind if I workout while we do this? My routine’s really all I’ve got down here.” Not that he gives a crap. Interaction with someone - _anyone_ \- is plenty good reason to interrupt and he’s never split his focus during any other interviews aside from those first few weeks Coulson kept trying to get answers from him. He’s got a good reason for splitting it now though (well, a decent one; it’ll be entertaining): he wants to see Simmons react to him the way she used to.

Her expression freezes. “Certainly. I’m sorry to be a bother.” She could kill a man with a tone like that, but he only goes on smiling and strips off his shirt. There’s no reaction, but it’s early yet.

“In answer to your question,” he says as he falls into his push-ups, “no. I’ve … come through that patch.”

She marks that down and he decides to press his luck.

“Trip wasn’t the one who saved me, was he?” He shifts to do the push-ups one handed and flashes the inside of his wrist between them on the way to putting his hand behind his back. “I thought these looked more like your handiwork?”

“They are.” If she grips that tablet any tighter, she’s gonna crack it.

“Thank you,” he says with all the sincerity he can muster.

She takes a minute to compose herself and, as the seconds tick by, it gets harder and harder to keep his smirk from emerging.

She’s got a lot of questions - about how his scars are coming along, about the injuries May gave him, about his diet and general health - and he’s got lots of exercises to go through. None of them work.

He thinks the reverse push-ups might have an effect - her hand goes to her collar (and he’s noticed this one’s a lot lower than she ever wore on the Bus, what’s that about?) - but then he sees the edge of a bandage. It’s bothering her, so much so that she keeps going back to picking at it through the rest of the interview and every time she does his whole world narrows to her clavicle.

It’s been months since he’s touched or been touched and watching her fingers push her collar lower, run along the edge of the bandage, slide up and over to massage a shoulder that’s probably aching from whatever hurt her ribs … it’s a new and inventive kind of torture.

Finally, somewhere around musing over the mechanics of the artificial sunlight they’ve been feeding him, she gets sick of the damn bandage and tears it off, revealing an angry, red cut that disappears down towards her breast.

Grant’ll never know if he made some noise or if she only just remembered he can _see_ her, but the end result is her looking his way and him suddenly realizing he’s been sitting on the edge of his bed for the past ten minutes, his routine forgotten.

He nods towards the edge of the cut, still visible thanks to her askew collar. “Coulson really does have you busy, huh? I hope you’re taking something for that, it looks like it hurts.”

She taps the tablet in a final sort of way and it’s for the best. For the first time since getting tossed down here, he’s dying to be left alone again.

“It’s not nearly the most uncomfortable thing I’ve had to live with in recent months,” she says, back to that cutting tone.

He drops his head, shame-faced, and completely misses her expression when she delivers the second punch.

“Learning to say ‘hail HYDRA’ without gagging was far more difficult.”

His head snaps up, but her back’s already to him and she’s heading up the stairs. 

 


	74. a stolen kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRACKS goes a lot differently and a lot better - in more than one way.

The mission is a smashing success in that they find and tag the package. It’s less so in that Jemma is getting some unforeseen practice in undercover work.

When she retreated to the loo to cry over her mother’s ashes, allowing Coulson the opportunity to flee their car to “search” for her and meet up with May, she was intercepted by the kind, elderly gentleman who chided Coulson on her behalf earlier. He invited her to have tea with him in the dining car and Jemma, uncertain how to refuse such a request even out of cover, had no idea how to extricate herself from the situation while hiding her true motives.

The good news is that the tea is splendid and she’s been able to hear the others completing their parts of the plan; the bad is that Stanley is a very talkative man and the most she’s been able to manage in the last half hour is a syllable here or there. There is some growing worry on the comms as to her lack of contact.

“Simmons!” Coulson calls for at _least_ the third time, sounding beside himself. “Can you hear me?”

Jemma opens her mouth, intending to let out an emphatic yes, but Stanley cuts her off with a hand atop hers on the table.

“-and I know,” he goes on, “you can’t understand it now, but that’s only because you never will. Men - and I say this with some obvious experience on the subject - are idiots and there’s nothing else for it.” He starts up again on the foolishness of the human heart and Jemma can only sigh, which is not nearly enough to reassure the others.

“Do you have a location?” Coulson demands.

“Dining car,” Fitz and Skye say over one another.

“Ward?”

“Already there,” he says and the next moment Jemma hears the car door open behind her. A warm voice greets the scattered passengers eating between them and then an even warmer hand is resting between her shoulder blades. 

Stanley cuts off and looks up just as she does into “conductor” Ward’s smiling face. He speaks to them in what she imagines must be perfect Italian. The accent is, at any rate. 

She’s instantly reminded of Lorenzo, her first university crush. He was far too old for her but he was the first man she loved for more than his mind. That accent was a thing of beauty and she was not alone in the attention she paid whenever he was called upon to speak before the class.

The heat from Ward’s hand travels lower, curling deep in her belly, in that same fluttery place that always starts up when he jokes with her or smiles at her or even sometimes, ashamedly, happens to glance her way when her thoughts have been unprofessional. She gulps heavily.

“Ah, apologies,” Ward says, still in that accent. Stanley must have spoken in English and Jemma was so distracted she missed it. She is utterly failing at this undercover assignment. 

This is, she imagines, the sort of emotional distress the Operations Academy advises its students to avoid. She doesn’t have long to imagine it though before Ward has turned that smile - and she _knows_ it’s a put-on for Stanley’s benefit but it doesn’t stop her heart tripping over itself - her way. 

“Signora … Phillips?” he asks.

When she doesn’t immediately answer, she feels a faint pinch just above the collar of her shirt.

“Yes!” she says and hears several sighs of relief over the comms, along with a “ _finally_ ” from Skye. She winces. She’d forgotten all about their worry. And oh, this really is bad, isn’t it?

Ward’s smile sharpens a hair, becoming more the sort he wears when he jokes with her while they’re navigating around one another in the early morning. You’d think, it being just the two of them up and about at that hour, there’d be plenty of room, but somehow they always seem to bump into each other and it’s become something of a running joke.

His thumb slides along her skin, soothing the spot he pinched. “Your father is looking for you. He seemed very concerned.”

“Oh! Yes! Of course!” She all but jumps up from her seat. “Thank you for the tea, Stanley,” she says and turns, hoping to make it out of the car before she turns completely red.

“Signora?” Ward calls before she can make it two full steps.

Her back stiffens and she forces herself to remain as calm as possible while she turns. “Yes?”

Ward nods to the urn she’s left on the table.

“Oh! Thank you!” She hurries back and grabs up the urn, clutching it to her chest like a beloved stuffed toy. That _is_ how a grief-stricken woman would hold her mother’s ashes … isn’t it?

Stanley is watching her with an expression she’s not sure how to quantify and Ward, while perfectly professional, has that spark in his eye that says he’s trying hard not to laugh. She needs to salvage this situation somehow. That’s what a good operative would do. The only question is, _how_? What would a grieving young woman do to prove she is, in fact, a grieving young woman and not simply a liar who is holding a jar of slightly radioactive particles masquerading as an urn full of ashes?

“Thank you,” she says again, and does the thing she’s been dying to do for weeks - because it is _fitting for her character_ , not at all because she wants to. She rises up on her tiptoes and kisses Ward’s cheek before turning on her heel and fleeing the dining car.

The mission, she thinks as she checks in with the others once she’s sufficiently isolated to speak freely, has been a _smashing_  success.

 


	75. "why does anyone have to be naked?"

Jemma is leaning against the cushioned wall of the cell. Sitting is out of the question as the floor - and the air too, honestly - is freezing and there is not a chance in hell she’ll be sitting on the bed. Even if Ward weren’t lounging on it, grinning at her like some demented cat who’s just had a bird dropped in his lap.

“Take off your clothes,” he says. It’s something of a surprise, not just because of the request but because it’s breaking an hour of solid silence between them.

“What?” she asks, hoping she misheard.

He climbs to his feet, all lethal grace, and approaches her. “I said, take off your clothes.”

She extracts herself from the wall but is quickly backed into another - there really isn’t much room for running in here, is there? He’s staring down at her, oddly intent, and she can see his nostrils flare when he drags his knuckles along her cheek.

“Ward…”

“It’ll be better if we’re both naked,” he says in a low tone that makes her nerves rattle, “but it’s kind of a pain to fight with your dick hanging out, so you start and we’ll see how far we get before we’re interrupted.”

It would likely take her some time to sort that statement out even if she weren’t having a great deal of trouble keeping her focus off his mouth and his hand, which has dropped from her cheek to make a slow exploration of her neck and shoulder, tugging at the collar of her shirt as it goes. As it is, she can barely find the sense to ask, “Why does _anyone_ have to be naked?” Which seems a rather obvious question, given the way his simple touch is affecting her. Despite her previous feelings on the subject, if he keeps going in this direction, she’ll want very much for both of them to be naked very soon.

He smiles in that dangerous way of his and bends over her, so close she can feel his beard scraping the shell of her ear. “Because Coulson might be desperate enough for intel he’ll lock us both up together, but he’s not about to watch me take advantage of you while you’re brainwashed.”

The fire in her belly is instantly cooled - well, dimmed at least; he’s taken to following the path his hand forged earlier, hovering close enough she can imagine his lips against her skin, but never making that final contact and it’s fit to drive her mad.

“I am not _brainwashed_ ,” she snaps. She is not one of those happy to comply automatons walking the halls of the base with blank eyes and empty smiles.

He chuckles in response and he’s close enough she can feel the sound more than hear it.

“And it’s not Coulson who threw me down here,” she adds. “It was some fellow named Gonzales.” He and his nasty “real SHIELD” - honestly, the _real_ SHIELD died when the Triskelion fell - kidnapped her from her apartment and tossed her in with Ward after a frustrating round of interrogations. It was terribly rude; Kenneth cannot be relied upon to take care of her samples properly and that will be six weeks of work down the drain - assuming she survives to return to the lab, of course.

Ward freezes and slowly uncurls himself to tower over her. He braces his arms on the wall, keeping her trapped where she is. “What happened to Coulson?”

Jemma shrugs.

Ward’s mouth curls into a frown and he stares at the empty space above her head a moment before pushing off from the wall. “Well … fuck. Guess we’ll have to focus on the brainwashed part then.”

“I am _not_ brainwashed,” she says again. She crosses her arms over her chest, rolling her shoulder as she does to readjust her shirt and bra. She can’t seem to get them back in place to erase the reminder of his touch.

“You are,” he says patiently. “No way the Jemma Simmons I knew would ever hail HYDRA. Now-” he claps his hands like he’s starting some big project- “first thing is who did it to you. Different heads have different preferred methods - so who do you work for nowadays?”

She sighs. “Is it too late to give that naked plan a try?”

 


	76. "my nightmares are about losing you"

He can’t sleep. Not after… Well, not after. So even though he just went toe-to-toe with the fucking Cavalry a few hours ago, he’s heading for the punching bag while everyone else is heading for bed. He’s got his earbuds in and his favorite death metal drown everything out mix on - the one that’ll probably get him killed one day - so he doesn’t hear the light footsteps coming up the stairs from the cargo hold when he’s stepping out of the lounge.

He and Simmons nearly run right into each other and she dances back and to the side along the catwalk, letting him past. She’s nervous, flighty, has no idea what to say to him, just like all the rest. Hell, she didn’t even tut over his injuries earlier, she just bit her lip and patched him up without saying a single word. 

After their last conversation - the one in the hospital the day Skye was shot - he’s really not looking forward to having another, especially when he’s just coming off a mind-fuck from an Asgardian, so he’s not all that happy to see her hovering like she wants to say something. Mood he’s in, if she smacks him again, he’s probably not gonna let her get away with it.

“Whatever it is,” he says, his hands fisting on the guard rails, “it should probably wait for a better time.” He lets himself sound the way he wants to: dangerous and deadly. It’s not a tone he typically allows himself around the team, but Simmons isn’t a typical member of the team. She knows what he really is, who his loyalties really belong to. Hence the slap.

Her mouth moves and she takes a tentative half-step towards him. He can’t hear her over his music so he groans and pulls out the earbuds, letting them dangle down by his ankles.

“You wanna be pissed at me for something that wasn’t even my fault,” he interrupts, and watches anger flare in her eyes again, “fine. But I think we can both agree the last twenty-four hours were a pretty fucking good punishment. So _don’t_.”

She’s still, like an animal trying to appear invisible, and he feels suddenly guilty. Sure, it’s been hell watching her back for this mission, but he didn’t ask to be stuck with her anymore than she asked to be dragged into HYDRA in the first place. She was already stretched thin by the lying and the secrets and now the Skye thing on top of it? He’s lucky she hasn’t blown seventy years’ worth of careful strategizing by now. One little slap because his SO ordered her friend shot isn’t so bad.

He sighs. “Listen, I-” His apology gets knocked out of him when Simmons throws her arms around his shoulders. She’s so short he’s gotta bend or support most of her weight, and with his injuries it’s just easier to return the hug.

“I’m sorry,” she says into his neck, and it feels a little wet. “I’m sorry for everything I said and I’m sorry that you-” She squeezes him tighter and it puts a strain on his aching muscles but it feels good too. Really good. He holds her a little tighter himself and lets his chin rest comfortably against her head.

“Not your fault,” he says, still a little confused.

She slips down to the floor but not out of his arms and examines his chest, seeing past it to the cuts and bruises she patched up after the fight. “Do you need anything?”

His hands itch to close more tightly around her hips. “You took care of me earlier.”

She lifts her eyes to his. “I meant anything else? To talk or- or anything else?”

He’s got an idea what she might be offering and while part of him wants badly all of a sudden to take her down to the van and bury himself in her, to forget all about Asgard and HYDRA and John’s steadily waning health, the rest of him has no idea where those thoughts are even coming from. 

“No,” he says, shaking his head and stepping back, afraid if he doesn’t, he’ll follow through on those visions still dancing through his head.

“Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.” She tucks some of her hair behind her ear and glances - finally - towards the door to the lounge. 

Silently, he wills her to _go_ because he’s not sure he can be the first one to walk away. Instead, she steps up to him again and something like a moan catches in his throat.

“This might sound silly,” she says, “but even after what happened with Skye, my nightmares are still largely about losing you.” She tries to smile up at him, but it comes out forced. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Grant. And I don’t just mean because of-” she gestures weakly, unwilling to name the organization that they both truly work for. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she finishes and goes up on her toes to kiss his cheek briefly. 

And then she leaves, slipping into the lounge without a moment’s hesitation - and that’s good because if she’d been any slower, he would’ve caught her and taken her down to the van.

He grabs his earbuds again and heads downstairs, with even more frustration to work off than he had when he first left his bunk.

 


	77. reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for wswinter's reunion theme.

The barrier turns transparent and Grant blinks in surprise. “Simmons.” He’d thought - from the weight of the footsteps and their obvious reluctance to come down - that it was Skye back to ask him about Stransky again. He pushes his confusion aside in favor of a smile. “Long time no see.”

She turns without lifting her feet to throw a look at the security camera behind her. Obviously it wasn’t her idea to come down. 

Whatever she’s here for, he gets the feeling it’s not a simple question and answer session. She’s got a heavy, metal case hanging from her hands and he doubts he’s gonna like whatever’s inside.

“I’ve been hoping I’d see you,” he tries. “I wanted to thank you for-” He turns his wrist out, flashing his scars her way. He’s fairly certain she’s the one who patched him up - Trip might’ve been able to, but good a guy as he is, it’s unlikely he’d have been so generous as to save him. “But I’ve wanted to see you ever since Fitz-”

“ _Stop_ ,” she holds up one of her hands. “Don’t. Just- don’t. I’m not here to listen to your self-flagellation or reminisce about old times or whatever else you like to subject your visitors to.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m here because I need your help.”

Of course she is. That’s the only reason anyone comes down to see him. Even Fitz needed help moving on, dealing with his demons; not quite the same thing Coulson and Skye come down for, but still reasonable. Something about the way Simmons says it though, makes him think she’s not here for either.

“I told Coulson,” he says carefully, “I’ll only give intel to Skye. I know that’s harsh, but she needs to hear what I have to-”

“For the _love of God_ , will you please _stop_?” Simmons lets out a very heavy breath and sinks into the chair. She drops the case’s handle, allowing it to rest on the floor, and buries her face in her hands.

Grant takes the opportunity to really look at her. She’s changed, just like Skye and Fitz have. Coulson’s aged at least a year since HYDRA’s coming out, but other than that he’s the same. The others have _made_ changes, conscious ones. Their hair, their clothes, even the ways they hold themselves. They’re trying to be different people because they _feel_ like different people.

“You’ve been training,” he says because it doesn’t look like she’s ready to speak.

She gives him a _look_ , the kind he’s pretty sure she learned from spending too much time around May. He doesn’t like that at all. If she needs his help, he’s gonna have to draw it out, give himself time to work her over and undo _that_.

She grips the arms of the chair tightly and straightens her back. “Elias Stransky is getting married,” she says slowly, “to Roberta Madison.”

It’s a struggle, as the name registers, to keep the smile off his face. Roberta Madison is the daughter of a very dangerous man who the team took down last year. Grant and Simmons were point on that mission thanks to a spur of the moment case of mistaken identity. Or, more precisely, Greg and Jennifer Farrier were - and those covers were never blown.

“The Ferriers have been invited,” Simmons says.

“And Coulson can’t pass up the chance to nab Stransky,” Grant fills in.

“No. We can’t.” There’s a slight emphasis on the “we,” like she’s trying to convince herself she was part of the decision.

Simmons, being Simmons, needed all the help she could get on her first real undercover mission. Any misstep she made, Grant needed to be right there to smooth over or, better yet, stop it before it happened. That meant the Ferriers were very much in love, in near constant physical contact. Hopeless romantic Roberta Madison ate it up and welcomed them right into her circle of friends. She’s never gonna buy it if Simmons shows up without Grant or, worse, with someone else, and there’ll go their best chance at Stransky.

Simmons stands so that she can move the case to the chair and open it. When she turns, he’s not surprised to see the wedding rings they kept on the Bus for undercover missions; he _is_ surprised to see one of those plastic activity monitors everyone was wearing the last time he saw the light of day.

“This,” she says, hefting the black band in her right hand, “is the newest generation of SHIELD security bracelets. It will monitor your health and location, act as a secondary communication device in case of emergency, and - just for you - is a bomb.”

He’s a little insulted, honestly. He’s sure he could get out of that thing without much trouble.

“I’ll be able to activate it, and so will the team monitoring our progress. So don’t get any ideas.”

“Simmons…” He gives her his best kicked puppy expression, but she completely misses it when she turns back to activate the barrier controls. She opens a single square at just the right height to pass his arm through. “I’m not going to try anything,” he says when she approaches to attach the band. “I just want to help - however I can.”

Her face is set while she uses those surgeon hands to strap a bomb to his wrist. She’s determined to hate him. So when she tries to leave the ring in his hand and step away, he catches her wrist.

She gasps and he can just imagine alarms blaring upstairs, but he only reaches through with his other hand to pluck her rings from her palm and slip them onto her finger. 

He knows he’s got plenty of time ahead to touch her - when he’ll be _required_ for the sake of the cover to touch her - but he can’t help but take a moment now to savor the soft flesh of her palm, the delicate fingers, the warm skin.

He drops her hand before she can snatch it away.

“I don’t trust you,” she says, hand fisted against her stomach.

“You will,” he promises earnestly. He’ll do everything in his power to make sure that by the end of this mission, he’s got her back on his side. Which is gonna be tricky, honestly, what with his plans to escape before the dust settles, but if the job was easy…

 


	78. pestilence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by shineyma's [amazing gifset](http://shineyma.tumblr.com/post/140807835847/biospecialist-as-pestilences).

Gonzales is trying to win her over, which would be pathetic on its own but the clearly targeted attack - Weaver showing her around the _Iliad’s_ labs, May sticking around when she never gives two figs about this sort of thing in general, Bobbi showing up at just the right moment with an experiment she’d like a second opinion on - is  _infuriating_.

“Yes,” Jemma says finally, her patience worn thin, “you are very well outfitted here. Men and equipment, resources the Playground can’t hope to boast. It’s no wonder you were able to put _three_ moles inside our organization. No sending wounded men into life or death scenarios for the real SHIELD, is there?”

She doesn’t pin any of them with the cold look she wears as she thinks of Trip, reduced to dust and rubble by some alien machination; they can all see enough of it reflected in the lab window, and she can see enough of the guilty looks they wear in return. Good. They _should_ feel bad. They should feel _wretched_. They should-

She closes her eyes. She’s been in SHIELD long enough to stop that thought before it grows tempting. They deserve a fate worse than Trip’s for this betrayal - not May, perhaps, as Jemma has her suspicions that her acceptance of the new status quo is only meant to put her in a better position to aid Coulson later - but the rest of them, surely. Every single member of their horrid little Council. One day … one day she’ll see them brought low for this.

“There is one more thing,” Bobbi says, a touch hopefully. As Jemma turns, she catches the end of a silent argument between her and Weaver. “We’d love your opinion on it.”

“Yes,” Weaver says tightly, her smile even more false than Bobbi’s. “It was - and still is - one of SHIELD’s most guarded secrets. But even we don’t fully understand it.”

Jemma rolls her eyes. “If this is another attempt to appeal to my pride the way you did with Mack-”

“Simmons,” May says gently. “Let’s give it a look.”

Jemma sighs. She is _beyond_ done with May’s mothering. She tips her head, inviting them to lead the way.

Bobbi babbles while they walk, but Jemma barely hears the explanation of the artifact’s recovery from HYDRA at the end of World War Two or the stories of all the agents who’ve lost their lives to it over the decades. She’s too busy making note of the locations of the vents on the walls and calculating how long it would take for an airborne contagion to reach every member of the crew.

“Agent Simmons,” Weaver says, a touch sternly. She takes Jemma by the shoulders, pulling her attention away from the door that is like every other they’ve passed on this level, save that this one is bright red. “You must keep your guard up. Don’t allow its frail appearance to fool you. It’s _incredibly_ dangerous.”

“Don’t worry,” Jemma says evenly, “it will likely be a very long time before I allow appearances to convince me of anything again.”

Weaver lets her go as if burned. Jemma faces the door and waits for Bobbi to enter the keycode.

She’s not expecting much - she grew bored with SHIELD’s secrets months ago, when weeks of sifting through the wreckage left behind brought her no closer at all to what she sought - and at first she gets what she expects. The room is predictably bare save for the painted lines on the floor, presumably indicating barriers similar to those in the Playground’s Vault D, except these are arranged in a perfect square at the far end of the room. Inside, most disappointingly, is nothing but a dark grey lump. It doesn’t even glow.

It _does_  move, slowly uncurling so that she can see the black spot in it is not a shadow, but hair. The blanket - and that’s what the grey is - shifts as the head tips back, one cheek sliding along the doubtless cold floor until sunken eyes can fix on them.

“It’s a person,” May says, her voice coming from several steps behind Jemma. She hadn’t realized she’d moved forward into the room.

The man in the cage stares, his eyes fixed on her. His mouth falls slightly open and he presses one knobby hand to the floor to steady himself as he raises his body up. It must be difficult. The blanket falls off first one, then another thin shoulder. She could count his ribs from here.

“He’s been in containment for decades. We give him food, water, but we’re not sure he even needs it.”

“Has there been any study?” Jemma’s voice sounds very far away even to her own ears. The man’s eyes close briefly on the sound, his head tips to one side as though to better catch it. She folds her arms beneath her breasts to stop them shaking.

“Some,” Bobbi admits, “but every time SHIELD’s ever taken a sample, apparently anyone who handles it ends up dying of some horrible disease. That’s the story anyway. Sounds more like one of those Egyptian tomb things to me, but Fury shut down investigation into it. Now he just sits here.”

Jemma struggles to find the next logical question. It’s nearly impossible to think clearly with the way he’s staring.

And it doesn’t become any easier when his eyes darken suddenly, whites going abruptly red before blood starts flowing from them like tears. He drags in a gasp and his entire chest swells until he no longer appears starved to death.

“Yeah, he changes sometimes,” Bobbi says. “Every so often he gets new symptoms. It’s usually gross.” She doesn’t sound at all sympathetic to the man currently coughing up a mix of blood and bile. “So, you can stay and watch the floor show or you can come upstairs, sift through the mountains of observational data that’s been gathered over the years.”

Jemma can’t tear herself away.

“Simmons? Hey.” Bobbi’s hand lands on her shoulder, jerking her out of her thoughts.

“Yes,” she says, trying to resume the ornery teenager tone she’s been using most of the day, “what?”

“Any thoughts on the weirdo in the cell?”

Only one that it’s possible to turn into words and she doesn’t dare speak those.

He’s _beautiful_.

 


	79. a kidnapping

The most degrading thing about being captured is the being carried. Oh, Jemma’s certain there are even worse things waiting for her, but in the two hours since she was kidnapped off a city street (Bobbi will _never_ let her live down that the one time she went out alone, she was snatched up), by far the worst bit is that it only takes one of her captors to carry her. 

She’s seen enemy agents brought into the Playground; those unable to walk are always either wheeled in on gurneys or carried between several agents. But Jemma? She’s being carried like a child, held (one-armed!) against a very solid body, almost sitting on his hip (it’s definitely a man’s chest she’s pressed into) as he carries her up a flight of stairs. 

“I want you to know,” she says primly as he side-steps to angle her through what she imagines is another door (she can’t well be certain, as she’s had a bag over her head for the entire journey), “you’re going to die for this.”

The man holding her doesn’t respond except to sit her down in a surprisingly (and worryingly) comfortable chair and snatch the bag away. She blinks rapidly to clear her vision and gets a good view of a very attractive man kneeling in front of her. (And oh, that isn’t the sort of first thought she should have about the enemy, is it? Perhaps she hit her head harder than she thought when she was thrashing about in that trunk.)

There is _only_ the one man though, which is a bit confusing, as are the surroundings. It looks like she’s in a home office - admittedly a very nice one (those ceilings must be at least twelve feet high) - but this is certainly not some seedy prison, not unless those windows are affixed with some very impressive video screens.

“Don’t,” her captor says, “make me use this.” He doesn’t aim his pistol at her, only shows it to her while keeping his finger off the trigger so as to avoid an accident. (He knows what he’s doing.) He makes sure she’s seen it before tucking it into the back of his jeans and untying her hands.

She’s so flummoxed by the sudden shift that she doesn’t bother trying to escape (she’ll be better off waiting until perhaps she can get near that large vase between the bookshelves, it would do a much neater job knocking him out than her fists alone) and instead rubs her sore wrists while he moves on to her ankles. “What is this about?” she asks curiously.

“I’m Grant Ward, formerly of SHIELD - more or less,” he says, blunt nails plucking at the knots. She stiffens at the subtle admission that his loyalties laid elsewhere. She should have known only HYDRA could be so base as to kidnap her off the street. “I need a little chemistry help and I heard you were the best.”

She purses her lips and looks down her nose at him. “Well, for the record, I will not be aiding your attempts at a supersoldier serum or a weaponized pathogen or a new, designer poison. You may torture me all you like.”

The rope pulls free, its slide painful and pleasurable at once on her sore skin, and her captor tips his head back to regard her with a boyish grin. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of torture,” he says in a light tone that utterly belies his words, “but it’s not for you.”

Her mouth goes dry and before she can find the words to ask what, precisely, that ominous statement means, a distant door opens and slams shut.

“Dammit,” Ward mutters under his breath and then stands to roar. “ _Charles! What’d I say about slamming doors?_ ”

“Joanna did it!” a child’s voice calls back, a hint of adolescent apathy in the youthful tone.

“Did not!” a smaller voice protests.

Ward rolls his eyes and steps towards the door. “ _Charles!_ ” His voice drops off when two dark-haired children, neither possibly older than twelve, appear on the landing. “Get in here. Joanna … do whatever.”

Joanna laughs mockingly and darts away, leaving Charles to slump his shoulders and come obediently into the office while whining, “ _Gra-ant_.”

Jemma can only stare at the scene, trying to make sense of the sudden addition of two children (children who are not, she suspects, Ward’s despite the obvious resemblance, not unless he is surprisingly lenient about basic respect for a HYDRA agent) in what is already a very odd kidnapping scenario.

Ward urges Charles to pick up his pace with a guiding hand at his back and soon the two are standing in front of Jemma in a way that puts her in mind of an inspection. Not of her however, of _Charles_.

“Charles,” Ward says, “this is Dr. Simmons. She’s going to make sure you get an A on that chemistry midterm next week.”

Charles groans (loudly) and completely misses Jemma’s gasped, “ _What?_ ”

Ward only grins, either pleased by Charles’ pain or Jemma’s shock or both.

She was wrong before. Bobbi won’t mock her forever because she was kidnapped the one time she went out alone; being kidnapped to tutor some HYDRA agent’s child is far more shameful.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thestarfishdancer requested a nanny/single-parent AU and this happened instead


	80. forehead kiss

She’s going to make them kill her, that’s her only way out of this. Unfortunately, they seem more than happy to drag this out for however long it takes and if death doesn’t come for her soon, she’s not certain she’ll be able to keep what they want from them.

“-was hoping you might be able to offer suggestions.”

She tenses as Whitehall’s voice returns. He’s been gone for a stretch of time - she has no idea how long - and while the pain has remained throughout, the absence of his (steady, reassuring, reasonable) voice was a small relief.

While his voice caused her to tense in her restraints, the sight of who he’s brought with him has her flinching so hard she nearly breaks one of her own bones. Ward steps nearly between her and the screen in front of her, observing her with a cool detachment that, rather than chill her, makes her want to laugh. It’s exactly the look she tried perfecting whenever she was forced to visit him in his cell; she can only hope hers was at least half as disdainful.

“As you can see,” Whitehall says, sounding perturbed, “she’s still very much of her own mind. I’ve had highly trained operatives reach this stage with no memory of their own mother’s name. But this one…”

Jemma would smile if it wouldn’t hurt.

Ward sighs and fusses with the cuffs of his leather jacket. “Simmons has always been stronger than she looked. She won’t break - not easily anyway.” He gives her a clinical once-over. “You have to go sideways at her and even that won’t work if she believes strongly enough in what she’s hurting for.”

A faint trickling of liquid sounds and the source of it is revealed a moment later when Whitehall hands Ward a heavy-bottomed tumbler. “So what do you suggest?”

Ward takes a long sip that doesn’t falter in the slightest when an explosion rocks the building. “It’s not really my thing,” he says as Whitehall yells his demands for answers as to its cause, “but prayer couldn’t hurt.”

The glass shatters against the side of the device Jemma’s been strapped into. When Ward exits her field of vision, he leaves a very large piece in Whitehall’s jugular and the man himself on the ground. Jemma watches him bleed out with something that might, were she less exhausted, be satisfaction.

The screen goes dark. The restraints loosen. Ward is there. He catches her in his arms, cushions her against his chest as he half-drags, half-carries her out of the horrid room and into the plush sitting area in Whitehall’s main office. He sets her in a chair and pushes her hair back from her face to get a good look at her.

“Say something, Simmons,” he orders as another wave of explosions sounds. “Lemme know you’re still in there.”

Well, since he asked. “ _Bastard_ ,” she bites out, the word stinging in her dry throat.

He lets out a bark of laughter and plants a smacking kiss on her forehead. “You had me worried there.” One of his hands is still on the side of her hair, his thumb sweeping over her temple.

She’s confused, which is not a sensation she likes at the best of times, but coupled with the way every inch of her _aches_ and just thinking _hurts_ , puzzling out what he’s about is enough to make her want to cry.

“Hey, now,” he says and sounds so much like his old self, the lie he used to be, that she kicks his shin. The hand not in her hair drops to her knee, holding it down while he gives her a stern look. “Is that any way to treat the guy who’s saving your life?”

“What’s-” she asks and winces. She takes a deep breath. “-going on?”

Ward’s smile is sympathetic. “You got made by Whitehall, and Coulson did exactly what you’d expect: he lost his shit and called the Avengers.” He tips his eyes up to the ceiling as another explosion sounds, closer than the rest this time. “That should be them now.”

She kicks him - gently, this time - with her other leg and gets an impatient frown for it.

“They needed a way to find you and as I’m the only guy they had capable of walking right into a HYDRA base and asking to see any traitorous biochemists they might have on the premises…” He flashes her his wrist and she sees that the button on his cuff is emblazoned with a faintly glowing SHIELD eagle. If she had to guess, she’d say it’s one of Fitz’s trackers.

“Coulson would _never_ ,” she says half-heartedly. It’s getting easier to talk again, but she’s not about to push it with full sentences where she can help it.

“One of his people was kidnapped by HYDRA,” Ward says seriously. “What do you think he _wouldn’t_ do?”

A great deal, honestly. For one, they’re at war and it was made abundantly clear to her before she took this assignment just how dangerous it would be. For another, while she knows Coulson cares for her as he does for all of the team, she’s aware she isn’t his favorite. Letting go of his most closely guarded secret, freeing  _Ward_ … she truly didn’t think she warranted such a reaction.

She’s saved from answering - or from giving as good as an answer to Ward via her expression - by the crumbling of a wall and the arrival of (he really wasn’t kidding) the Avengers.

“Told you,” Ward says and then turns his mocking smiles and double-edged words on the heroes of New York. Jemma watches with interest, half-hoping one of them shoots him and half-grateful he’s here; apparently their exit strategy involves flying out and, as she’s too weak to argue for herself, he’s the only defense she has against it.

 


	81. wanting and having

“Wow, you really meant that, didn’t you?”

Jemma turns in her seat to shoot Skye a smile. “Morning. Meant what?”

Skye lets the door shut and joins her at the monitor. “That you watch him every morning.”

“Ah.” There’s really no response for that, as it’s true, so Jemma takes another sip of her tea.

If Skye wants to ask her more - perhaps for the reasons Jemma herself isn’t certain of - she decides against it in favor of setting a brown paper wrapped box on the desk.

“What’s this?” Jemma asks.

Skye shrugs. “Dunno. They found it in the wreckage of that mess the Avengers made last week.”

Jemma frowns while she pulls carefully at the taped sides. “What mess?”

Skye shoots her a level look. “It was literally all over the news.”

“And _I_ was trying not to be rooted out as a mole; I was rather preoccupied.”

Skye makes a sound to indicate what she thinks of that - and as Jemma’s still not sure how the others feel about her deception, she chooses not to analyze it. “Well, apparently Lorelei’s sister is even more of a bitch than she was. Thor took her back to Asgard but they found this when they were cleaning up and since it looks like some of the jewelry she was wearing, Hill asked Coulson to Fridge it to be safe.”

Jemma sighs as she pulls open the last of the paper. The box is only about the size of an apple and the object inside is smaller still: a bit of twisted metal, affixed with jewels. It might once have been part of a crown or bracelet, but there’s no way to tell. “I do wish the Fridge was more than Vault F. It’s really not prudent to keep so many dangerous artifacts under our own roof.” Her lab coat is on the back of her chair, as she was up late familiarizing herself with what the team’s encountered in her absence, and she grabs its arm to protect her skin while she turns the metal over. “Did Hill happen to mention how they restrained Lorelei’s sister? I’d like to specialize containment wherever-” 

The large amber stone clinging to one end of the metal catches the light and shoots it straight into Jemma’s eyes. It’s far brighter than it should be and that alone would indicate that she’s inadvertently activated it, but the faint buzz that washes over her skin is firm proof.

“Oh no,” Skye gasps, having obviously seen. Jemma shuts her eyes against further contamination as Skye freaks out. “Oh, boy, that cannot be good. I’m gonna go get Coulson, you just-”

“Hurry,” Jemma says, a little more sharply than she means. But that’s not necessarily a side-effect, is it? She’s short on sleep and still on edge around the others and she, of all of them, knows precisely the dangers of being infected - no, _no_ , affected, she is not _in_ fected with anything - by some alien trash.

Skye rushes from the room, and only when she hears the door close does Jemma return the artifact to its box and replace the lid. She breathes deeply, steadily, and opens her eyes. She’s fine. Aside from a slight energy crackling along her skin - and that she could easily mistake for caffeine jitters were it not for the obvious alien cause.

She picks up her mug from the desk and takes a sip to sooth her nerves. She resumes her habit of watching their prisoner workout in an attempt at pretending everything is normal.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The barrier’s transparent. Skye was too pissed last time she left to bother whiting it out, so Grant can see it’s Simmons finally coming for her visit the second she opens the door. 

That’s not quite right though, is it? Sure, he hasn’t seen her face to face the way he has the others, but he’s pretty sure he’s only alive now because of her.

He’s not dying at the moment though, so what’s up?

“Simmons,” he says and carefully shifts his weight forward to come out of his handstand. “This is a-” the barrier crackles the way it does when he’s passed his food or new clothes- “surprise.”

None of the others have ever opened the barrier. Coulson and Skye mess with its opacity when they’re pissed at him and want him to shut up and Fitz messed with his air, but no one but Trip’s ever opened it to pass him anything.

Curious, he turns while he brushes off his hands. Even upside-down she looked pretty serious on her way down the stairs, whatever she’s brought for him must be important.

The second he turns, her hands are on his face and neck, pulling him down in a kiss so fierce he wouldn’t believe it was coming from Simmons if he couldn’t see her. 

He freezes. There are a lot of variables to consider here, not the least of which being that the barrier keeping him imprisoned is down, but Grant hasn’t touched another human being in two hundred and three days and it only takes a few seconds of contact, a few brushes of skin and cloth against his bare chest, before his brain goes primal.

Her hips fit perfectly in his hands and her whole body shudders when his thumbs slide under her t-shirt. Her bare arms brush his, leaving raised hairs in their wake. Something else is rising too and when her hips roll into his, he shifts, intending on slotting a knee between her thighs.

Her teeth catch his lower lip when she breaks the kiss for air. He tips his forehead against hers to let her know he’s not going anywhere and she smiles as she opens her eyes.

They’re the wrong color.

She blinks and the gold is gone, leaving the usual brown.

“Simmons!”

She stumbles back, and Grant lets her go. His skin is charged. Every cell in his body tells him to grab her, drag her back to him before she crosses the line. He tells every cell in his body to stuff it and lifts his arms wide.

“I didn’t-” he says, cutting off when the damn barrier shimmers back into existence. Skye drops the controls and rushes to grab Simmons in her arms. Coulson keeps his gun trained on Grant. “She just came in, I swear I didn’t … do anything.”

Skye is petting Simmons’ hair and hugging her so tight it’s gotta hurt. Grant feels a pang of longing to run his own hands through her hair.

“We know,” Coulson says, sounding more than a little angry that he _can’t_  blame this on Grant, and turns to Simmons. He settles a fatherly hand on her shoulder and helps lead her up the stairs. From the little they say along the way, Grant figures aliens were involved.

Of fucking course.

He stays where he is, watches them disappear out the door. Simmons looks over the arms sheltering her only once and meets his eyes with all the same longing and confusion that keep him rooted to the spot until they’re gone.

 


	82. I can't believe you talked me into this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shineyma prompted "I can't believe you talked me into this."
> 
> Slightly nsfw.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” She punctuates the statement by snapping her gloves off against his thigh.

“ _Ow_ ,” Grant says even though the drugs she gave him (she flat out refused to do a damn thing until he’d taken something) mean he barely feels it at all. “And I didn’t talk you into anything, I texted your burner with my location and you showed up.”

She flops into the chair she dragged over earlier to work out of and props her legs on top of his. He doesn’t bother pulling away - half because he _can’t_ and half because he just doesn’t want to.

“You knew I’d come because you put no small amount of time into working me over. You talked me into this years ago and you know it.”

He frowns, not sure whether that would make actual sense if he wasn’t drugged up right now. 

“I should’ve just let you die,” she mutters, looking off towards the cracked TV sitting on the dresser.

“Are you seriously mad that you saved my life?” he asks.

She keeps her eyes averted and he wonders what she’s thinking. Maybe of all the horrible things the others say about him when they’re sitting around that fancy new base of theirs. Maybe about him working her. 

“Why didn’t you ever tell Coulson?” she asks.

One of the shitty mattress springs is starting to dig into his back; it doesn’t  _hurt_  thanks to the drugs, but it is annoying. He tries to shift his weight to get off it, but ends up with a real stab of pain straight through his lungs. When the stars in his vision clear, Jemma’s staring at him, waiting for her answer.

“Didn’t really seem like any of his business that we’d fucked - and it was ages ago, anyway.”

Her mouth curves in a slight smile - either at the memory or at his purposeful misunderstanding - and she curls her legs off of his. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

“Ah.” 

It would’ve been in her best interests to abandon him to his fate; the only person left who knows her secret would be gone and it’s not like she’s above that sort of thing (he definitely noticed how many of Garrett’s old people died under Whitehall’s leadership during her months undercover there). But there’s way too much history between the two of them for her to do that to him. Not like May, who nearly tore him apart at CyberTek, or Fitz, who nearly killed him, or Skye, who’s the reason he had to call her at all. He and Jemma go back.

There was a time when they kept all the same secrets, were on the same side - and that didn’t change because HYDRA came out of the shadows; it changed because Jemma refused to. She chose to side with SHIELD - for whatever godforsaken reason.

“It was an investment,” he says.

She raises a brow and, in answer, he gestures to the crappy motel room they’re both in. 

“If I’d outed you to Coulson, you wouldn’t be here to save me now.”

“You had no way of knowing I’d come or that you’d even need me.”

He chooses not to point out that she’s just undermined her original argument there. “Life I live, I was bound to need a medic sooner or later. I’d rather have a pretty one, thanks.”

She shakes her head and her cheeks burn at the compliment. He likes it when she blushes. 

He misses her.

Her phone rings and he turns away from the sudden noise. It doesn’t hurt but it does make his stomach churn in a way that really isn’t good when he’s got three bullet holes in his side.

“Coulson needs me,” she says softly when she looks at the screen.

“So go. Wouldn’t want your cover getting blown this late in the game.”

“Ward-”

“I can take care of myself, Jemma.” He tips his chin towards the door. “Go.”

She grabs her kit from the floor and sets a bottle of pills beside a glass of water on the nightstand. “At least pretend you’ll take them.”

“Only for you,” he says with his most charming smile.

She runs her thumb over the ugly scar he got from ramming his head into the walls of that cell. That’s not what he thinks of though. He thinks of their bodies rocking together, of her nails dragging through his hair and the way her eyes lit up when she saw it made him shudder. 

“I won’t do this again,” she says, “not even for you.”

The memory crashes down around him and maybe that’s why he waits until the last moment, when she’s nearly gotten away, to throw a cocky, “Sure you will,” after her.

She pauses in the doorway, poised between coming and going, and for a moment he thinks-

She goes.

 


	83. sharing clothes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon prompted "finding the other wearing their clothes"

Jemma has had a long, hellish day and the worst part wasn’t even accidentally telling Daniel Whitehall how to fix his bloody weaponized pathogen. Oh no, the _worst_ part was Sheila from HR demanding they sing “Summer Lovin’” together at karaoke. So really, the only thing Jemma wants when she gets home is for Coulson to _not_ be waiting to debrief her.

She gets her wish.

And a very prompt lesson in being careful what she wishes _for_.

“Hot date?” Ward asks. He’s leaning against her kitchen island, barely an arm’s length away. It would be the easiest thing in the world for him to grab her, and she has no illusions at all that she’d be able to reach her door - only four feet behind her - if she turned and ran. 

Under the circumstances, she does the only thing she really can. “ _How?_ ” she asks, utterly flabbergasted at his presence.

He grins and it’s much less manic without the Unabomber beard. In fact, his expression softens to one she’s quite familiar with: the gentle, sweet one he used to wear when they flirted in the early morning before the others woke up. “Well, if you mean how did I escape SHIELD, Coulson was dumb enough to hand me over to the feds. If you mean how did I find you, I checked in with Bakshi and he mentioned an old teammate of mine rising through the ranks. I had to see it for myself.”

He pushes off from the island and she stumbles back, nearly tripping over the table she keeps her mail and keys on. His hands land on her shoulders, holding her steady, and he meets her eyes intently. 

She expects a question of her loyalties or even an outright accusation that she’s a mole, she doesn’t expect for him to hold her gaze for nearly a full minute.

His hands fall away and he steps back with a sigh of relief. “No implant then. How about incentives? Where are your parents?”

“Sh-Sheffield,” she stutters, too shocked by the question to refuse to answer - and it’s not as though he doesn’t know where her parents live. “At _home_ , I should think.”

He frowns curiously. “So … this is for real? You really quit SHIELD for _HYDRA_? Just like that?”

She looks away, unable to answer because anything she says he’s sure to see for the lie it is. She tugs at the overlong sleeves of her jacket. She practically swims in the thing, but that only adds to the comfort wearing it gives her and it’s become her go-to for late nights out with her work colleagues for just that reason.

“ _Oh_ ,” Ward says in a heavy sort of tone that pulls her attention back to him. Has he realized? Has something in her expression given her away?

He steps closer and fingers her collar. “I must be losing my touch,” he muses while his fingers slide around the collar and into her hair, “after all those months locked away. I thought you’d just gotten home from a date.”

“N- no,” she says, wondering what that has to do with anything. “Just karaoke.”

Ward smiles. It’s utterly predatory but the thrill of fear it sends through her has her leaning closer, not pulling away. “This isn’t some random lab monkey’s jacket,” he says and his fingers tighten in her hair, “it’s _mine_.”

Oh. Right. She’s been trying so hard to forget that she … well, _forgot_. It’s silly that having something of him so close would reassure her, but that’s the truth of it and it would be sillier still to deny herself what little comfort she could find. So she didn’t. She secreted his jacket along when she left the Playground - it’s not as though anyone would notice, as no one dares enter Ward’s bunk these days - and has kept it close ever since.

His hand kneads gently at the back of her head while his fingers keep a firm grip on her hair. “Why’d you leave SHIELD, Simmons?”

“L- lots of reasons,” she says. 

He raises an eyebrow, demanding more.

“They no longer had the resources to allow for any non-essential experimentation.”

“Try again.”

“Fitz,” she says before she can stop herself. “He couldn’t stand to be around me.”

Ward hisses in a breath. “Poor guy. He told you how he felt, didn’t he?”

Jemma has half a mind to kick him for that tone of his, but as that would likely end up with her dead, she refrains. 

“Why else?” he presses. “That can’t be enough to drive you to _HYDRA_.”

Her eyes drop from his in search of an answer - and promptly, she finds one. The long, ugly scar on the inside of his wrist is plainly visible with the way he’s holding her and she lifts her fingertips to touch it. The memory of sewing him back up hits her like a wave and she doesn’t have to fake a bit of the sadness on her face. 

His hold loosens, just a little. 

“You wanted to die,” she says softly. “I couldn’t watch that happen.”

It’s true, in a way. Watching him try to kill himself was the last straw that drove her out of the Playground, perhaps earlier than she was ready for. She’d patched his wounds more times than she could count but somehow, doing it on the cold floor of Vault D, it was too much. She simply _couldn’t_. And so she left.

“It was a play,” he says. His hand is still massaging at the base of her spine and she thinks he means to ease the revelation. “It was supposed to make Coulson think I wasn’t dangerous and it worked - well enough he let the government take me off his hands. I wasn’t serious.”

She always suspected as much. She isn’t certain how she feels about knowing the truth of it now.

He pulls and she steps forward, close enough she can feel the heat of him in her cool apartment. “But I’m glad to know there was someone out here who cared,” he says and kisses her.

Her first thought is that he must be incredibly self-centered to truly believe that lie.

Her second is that he is as good a kisser as she always imagined - and after that there aren’t many thoughts at all.

 


	84. please stay

“That’s it,” she says, voice falsely bright as she snaps off her gloves, “you’re fit to stand, which basically means you’re fit for duty under the current conditions.”

Grant slides off the make-shift exam table and gives her a smile. “I’ll be _fine_ , Simmons. I’ve been in worse shape.”

With the Hub’s infirmary and lab both in shambles (the medics and techs put up one hell of a fight), they had to find a spare storage closet for the exam Coulson insisted on before letting him go. It was a precaution, he said and was more to make sure Grant’s _aware_ of his injuries than because he actually intended on it stopping him. Grant doesn’t care, anything so long as he can get John the hell out of here.

“Yes,” she mutters to her medkit while she packs it up, “and you’re likely to be in worse shape again soon.”

He does them both the service of pretending he didn’t hear her and pulls his tac gear back on. The weight of it is uncomfortable after such a short relief, but with the world in chaos he’s gonna be wearing it more often than not in the future, his body’s just gonna have to get used to it.

“Don’t worry. SHIELD’s not done yet.” But it will be. Soon, if all goes well. “We’ll drop Garrett off at the Fridge and be back in no time,” he promises. It’s only half a lie. John’s not going to the Fridge, but Grant has every intention of coming back. Maybe not to the Hub, but to the team wherever they end up. He’s got business to finish.

She nods, still to her medkit, and he moves to leave. He’s got a couple more of these - Skye and Fitz, maybe even Coulson - coming, so he’s gotta get a move on if he doesn’t want Hand leaving without him.

“Stay,” she says when he’s nearly reached the door. “Please.”

“ _Simmons_ ,” he says carefully. She meets him when he turns, taking his hand in hers. She tsked over the cuts and bruises a few minutes ago. If they’d been on the Bus, she would’ve made him ice it and watched him like a hawk to make sure he followed orders. Now she just holds it gently between her hands.

“I know you feel like you have some obligation to see Garrett punished but we need you. Here. The whole world’s falling apart, we can’t let the team fall apart with it.” 

He’s struck suddenly by a very different sort of memory. A man - young, younger than Skye - choking on pain, too injured to stand or even fight back. He lay in a woman’s lap and she begged, pleaded with Grant to let him live, go away and pretend he’d never seen him here. 

Grant wants to laugh. Simmons has all the same earnestness, all the same desperation, it’s just the hatred that’s missing. Of course she wasn’t Simmons back then. That was over six hundred years ago. Her name was Mary or Elizabeth or something like that - doesn’t matter, what matters is that it’s _her_. Every lifetime, she’s there (or maybe he only remembers the ones with her, but it’s not like there’s any way to check). 

Only this one’s different because he’s remembered early. Usually it’s not until one of them hurts the other - betrays the other more often than not - but the second he touched the berserker staff, he remembered. He touched it before, centuries ago, back when Randolph first showed up on Earth. He always wondered if the old pervert recognized Simmons (he was sweet on her back then too), but there was no way to talk him around to it without giving himself away - and the game had only just gotten started.

He traps her hands between his and gives her one of his best smiles. A faint blush rises in her cheeks. It’s not so much anyone would notice, not unless they were looking for it; Grant’s looking for it.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” he says. Yet. Eventually he expects it’ll all come out - not just his involvement in Garrett’s double dealings but who he really is, who he’s _been_ \- and when it does, she’ll burn with all the same righteous anger she always does. She won’t care about his shitty childhood or Garrett being a father to him, all that’ll matter is who he is and who she is and the blood feud - soul feud, really - that’s kept them at each other’s throats for more than a hundred lifetimes.

(He’s got vague memories of a time when magic was real and talk of curses and echoing chants and a burn like a brand on his skin, but what he can piece together from that era is too faded for him to be sure what any of it means.)

“But I’ll be back,” he promises, and that one he intends to keep. The only thing he knows for certain is that it’s him and it’s her and one of them is always gonna come out on top. Last time it was her.

This time he’s determined it’ll be him.

She’s been holding her breath so tight it shakes her when she lets it out. The tears in her eyes sparkle but don’t fall. Maybe that part of her that hasn’t woken up yet is stirring, knows well enough what he is and has been to her to keep her from truly crying over him. 

“I’ll hold you to that,” she says, pulling her hands from his and stepping back. He stares down at his own hands, surprised by how cold they feel without her touch. 

“I’m still your doctor,” she says in the teasing tone that’s become so familiar to him in their private moments over the last few months, “don’t think I won’t come hunting you down if you don’t make it in for your post-mission check-up.”

He grins. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He leaves and each step feels like one closer to the gallows. He shakes himself. He’s not gonna lose to her this time. 

That’s gotta be why he’s so reluctant to go: fear. But he’s spent the better part of a year making her fall in love with him; even if she remembers somehow before he comes back to finish her off, he’ll be able to get her off balance. He’ll still have the advantage. 

So when the quinjet’s lifting off and his thoughts turn to her innocent smiles and caring touches instead of the promise of her soon to be dead eyes staring up at him, it’s only because he’s reassuring himself he has the upper hand. Nothing more.

 


	85. never unsee that

“What are you doing?” Grant asks when Simmons comes into the room.

She raises one elegant eyebrow and continues tapping at her tablet. “I’m checking on your progress.” She frowns and reaches for the bandage on his head. “Do you remember the fight with the primitives?”

He slaps her hand away. “Yeah. And the base lockdown. And all the arguing on the flight up to meet Zephyr One. _And_ Lincoln sacrificing himself. I remember it all, okay? I meant what are you doing ‘checking on my progress’ at three in the morning?”

“You were badly injured,” she says in that pert tone he’s come to realize means she’s lying (she’s gotten better at it - a _lot_ better, enough he’s proud he finally figured out one of her tells). “You need regular monitoring and that means all hours of the day and night.”

She checks the machines monitoring his vitals and he takes the opportunity to check _her_ over. She’s still wearing the same dark turtleneck she always wears when she’s heading into combat missions. Probably she’s done little more than drop off her tac gear in the base’s armory before throwing on her lab coat. Thanks to Hive, they’re bunking in a new base for the night, not home, but she’s still got an assigned bed somewhere and, after today, she should be in it.

He waits until she’s done - she’s still gonna fuss for a few more minutes but he can see in the set of her shoulders she’s assured herself he’s okay - and then he grabs her. He’s gotta sit up to get a good enough grip on her to pull her over the bar on the side of the bed and his ribs scream - especially when she lands on them - but when it’s done she’s laying half on top of him, holding perfectly still like she’s not sure what to do.

“Um, what do you think you’re doing?” she asks. He frowns at the look on her face. She’s the only one who does that anymore, who second-guesses him. Or at least the only one who lets him see it, which is basically the same thing. 

It’s the fucking planet that did it. The others all got used to having him around again, to trusting him again, she still hasn’t quite.

He wraps one arm around her to prevent her getting up and the other holds her shoulder to keep her from even trying. “You can either talk about it or sleep. I’d rather you do both but it’s your choice.”

She twists her neck to frown at him. “You think I’m going to sleep here?”

He shrugs, unapologetic. “It’s the only way I’ll know you’re actually resting.”

“Since when are you my minder, Ward?”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to remind her of a certain thirty-thousand foot drop, but this is serious. “Since everyone else was too worried about Daisy to remember you lost your boyfriend today too.”

Her whole body tenses up like he hit her - and he might as well have. She drops her eyes from his, looks _anywhere_ except at him (no easy thing when she’s on top of it) and shifts to a position that’s more comfortable for the both of them. He still keeps his hold on her.

“Will’s been dead for months,” she says softly. “Since I came back, in fact, so you’re wrong. I lost Will a long time ago.”

He waits. They both know that’s not all of it.

She breathes out slowly, shakily. “Hive may have had his face, his memories, but … he wasn’t Will. I know that. Especially after …”

“After what?” he presses after a few seconds go by.

She turns her head to rest her cheek on his arm. “I saw his real face.”

Now it’s Ward’s turn to tense. He saw Hive regrow a huge chuck of flesh in Wyoming. What grew wasn’t human bone and muscle, it was … something else. He really rather not think about the face that would’ve matched what he saw in that dark church.

“I don’t think I’ll ever unsee that,” she says quietly.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he says and moves his hand from her shoulder to her back, rubbing up and down gently. He’s probably the last person she wants comfort from but he’s the one here to give it, so she’ll have to deal. 

He doesn’t say anything about the wet seeping through the sleeve of his hospital gown and she doesn’t try to pull away. He’s just wondering how long she’s gonna let this go on when her breathing starts to even out. She might actually sleep too. (Miracles do happen.)

“You remind me of him,” she says, her voice heavy.

“Of the million year old monster? Yeah, makes sense.” He’s beginning to think she’s never gonna give up on hating him, which is a laugh because he once thought she’d be the first to forgive him.

Her head shifts against his side. “No. Will.”

If it weren’t for all the monitors that would start screaming, Grant would swear his heart stops. 

“Only sometimes,” she says, “when you’re not being evil.”

“Of course.” From what he knows of Will Daniels, the guy was practically Captain America reborn, no way Grant at his worst - or even his kinda bad - would remind her of him.

She rests a little deeper into him. “And his jokes were as bad as yours.”

Her eyes are peacefully shut and she’s practically asleep, so Grant doesn’t bother to hide his wicked grin as he sets to regulating his own breathing and getting back to sleep himself. She’s warm against him, light enough now his ribs don’t hurt at all and her hand’s resting over his heart like she wants to feel it’s still beating. Maybe he’ll win her over yet.

 


	86. open wounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon prompted "reacting to the other one crying about something."
> 
> NSFW

Grant’s not really sure how to do this next part. He’s done the get up and walk out thing before and the stay and cuddle thing, even the fall into a drunken sleep thing, but he’s never done the lock the girl in a cell thing. He’s not even sure that _is_ a thing, probably not many people end up going to bed with the subject of their interrogation.

He slides his hand a little lower on Simmons’ back, just brushing the top of her ass, and glances down at her. She’s using his chest as a pillow and breathing steady and deep like she could fall asleep any minute. He keeps his eyes on her sex-tousled hair and resists the urge to run his fingers through it again. 

He still hasn’t gotten an answer as to why they’re doing this. He made it clear she wouldn’t be distracting him well enough to get away - not with his men crawling every inch of this base - or seducing her way to freedom (no matter how good she was) and she didn’t seem to care.

He’s guessing the date with Fitz wasn’t going too well.

Her fingers are drawing patterns around his naval, too slow and sedate to be enticing, and after a few seconds she stops with a sigh that leaves his skin tingling. She lifts her head off his chest only to drop the opposite cheek right back down.

He cocks an eyebrow in silent question.

“My soulmate,” she says slowly, carefully, and he swears his heart stops at the word, “was a man named Will Daniels. He survived fourteen years in a place that can only be described as hell before I showed up an- and got him killed.”

She’s shaking. Not much, not enough he’d ever know if she wasn’t on top of him, and she manages to make it through her little speech with only the one stutter, which is damn good considering. He wonders how many times she’s had to say it to get it that steady (he wonders if she's _ever_ said it; she and Fitz were out on a fucking _date_ when Kebo grabbed her, after all).

He should’ve known. First thing she said to him when he was still trying to get answers out of her was to ask how he keeps going when Kara’s dead. He thought then she was just curious - she and Skye always were back on the Bus, asking way too personal questions of the other members of the team about their soulmates - but now he wishes he really had an answer for her. The frayed edges of the soulbond are like a bit of dead skin that refuses to fall away; he can deaden himself to it but it’s always there and every so often something pulls at it and he feels it like she’s been ripped away all over again.

Her lip’s starting to quiver; he knows that feeling well enough to know it’s only a matter of time before she breaks down. He reaches for flippant, cocky - not the most asshole version of him there is but on the way there. (Last thing she needs is her enemy being _nice_.)

He slides his hand up her back and into her hair, catching the side of her head. “Lucky guy.”

She jerks back and he holds her tight, not letting her pull away. “ _Lucky?_ ” she demands softly. “He _died_.”

Grant shrugs. “Saving his soulmate.” She didn’t say as much, but he kinda figures. Simmons is strong, yeah, but she’s also reckless and it’s not a leap to assume she needed rescuing. “Not a bad way to go.”

She struggles to get away. He tries wrapping an arm around her shoulders to hold her to him but she squirms and he rolls them over, pinning her to his mattress to keep her from escaping this.

“He’d be alive right now if it wasn’t for me!” she yells, her anger all aimed right back at herself.

“Yeah,” he agrees readily. “In _hell_. I’m pretty sure he’d say this is better.”

She shakes her head so violently her ears hit the sheets. “You didn’t know him.”

No, but he knows her and he can guess what kind of man would be her soulmate. 

He drops his weight to his elbows so he can catch her face in his hands. “Simmons- _Jemma_.” It’s strange using her first name when he’s not inside her and the sound of it snaps her back to reality. “There’s no shame in being alive,” he says, pressing her tight between his hands like he’s willing the words into her brain.

She stares at him the same way she did earlier in that interrogation room, so he’s expecting it this time when her hands come up to cup his cheeks and pull him down. He kisses her readily, giving her what he can. He knows every bit of confusion and fear and loneliness she’s feeling. She’s irreparably broken, suffering from a wound that’s never gonna heal or even scar.

He can use that.

 


	87. can we pretend?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon prompted "can we pretend I didn't just say that" from the happy fic prompt list. This ... is not happy.

Grant tops off Jemma’s wine and she smiles graciously in return. There’s something a little loose about her smile - she’s never been one to keep them muted even when she’s in possession of all her faculties, but the alcohol’s stealing a little of her sincerity. That’s a disappointment, but it can’t be helped. 

This is their fourth date and still she seems perfectly kind, perfectly genuine, perfectly _perfect_. He’s never made it four dates without finding a reason to end things before. He’s hoping if she gets a little drunk, she’ll say something she shouldn’t and he can finally put a nail in this coffin.

(If he can’t, if she continues to be what she has been all along, he’s really not sure what he’ll do. He could just … keep dating her? Is that an option?)

“-and blood, of course,” she says and he snaps abruptly out of his thoughts. 

She’s playing with her food - she hasn’t eaten nearly enough of it for how much wine she’s drunk - sliding tiny bits of pasta around in a sea of sauce.

“You want the pancreas about this consistency,” she goes on, “so it’s easier to cut into. Any tougher or softer and cutting into it will damage the tissue, making any meaningful examination impossible. I suppose that’s what makes it _al dente_.” She spears one of the curls and holds it up as evidence, only to drop it in horror a moment later. “Oh no.” She covers her mouth with her hands, completely oblivious to the splatter of sauce like blood across her arms and throat. “Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?” she asks sheepishly.

Grant stares, eyes fixed on the bright red against her pale skin. It’s entrancing. He has to struggle not to round the table and lick it off her like a caveman. (This is a  _nice_ restaurant and his mother will never forgive him if he gets the family blacklisted.)

Jemma’s muttering to herself, talking about that friend of hers, Daisy, again. Apparently the woman has warned her multiple times about bringing up dissection on dates.

Grant shifts in his seat, suddenly unable to think of anything _but_ Jemma examining a corpse. 

“It’s fine,” he says. He wets his napkin in his water glass and reluctantly wipes away the red. “I’m not some sheltered flower, Jem. I can handle a little shop talk.”

“It’s not exactly a normal shop,” she says, but her warm smile says he’s undone the damage.

He wants to do better than that though. “I’d like to hear more about your work. You barely talk about it.”

She shakes her head, probably afraid of slipping up again. As that’s exactly what Grant’s hoping she’ll do, he keeps hold of her hand after he’s finished cleaning her arm. 

“Tell me _everything_. I want to know all about you.”

It takes a little more coaxing but soon she’s lit up again, saying things that would likely turn most guys’ stomachs. Grant’s not most guys. He’s never met anyone else who appreciates a death the way he does and sure, Jemma appreciates it from the other side, but he can already see her enjoyment outstripping her sympathy for the dead. 

He’s not sure when he stopped looking for a flaw worth killing her over but he has. This isn’t a flaw he can fault her for, it’s a _gift_. A woman who appears perfect - the same way they all do at first - but she’s twisted up inside. Not much, not enough she’d end a life, but he can coax that out of her. Just a little prodding and he’ll show her how much fun it can be.

Then she’ll be perfect.

 


	88. second soulmate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the sequel to a [tumblr drabble](http://ilosttrackofthings.tumblr.com/post/140546729264/simmonswardrumlow-4-were-designed-to-be) in which Jemma and Brock Rumlow are soulmates. There's no need to read that prior to reading this, but it wouldn't hurt.

“Grant Ward,” he introduces himself and the bottom drops out of Jemma’s stomach. She can feel Fitz staring at her, gaping like a fish, probably wondering what he should do or whether he ought to say something, but the weight of his gaze feels small compared to the stranger’s.

No. Not a stranger. Grant Ward. Her soulmate. Her _second_ soulmate because she’s already got Brock and he’s all she needs, what does she need this other specialist for?

“Yeah,” he says heavily, “I kinda figured.” Of course he knows. It’s been nearly two years since his name appeared beneath her breast and hers would have appeared on him at the same time. 

Fitz snaps back before she does and she’s grateful for it. His setting to work spurs her to motion and she remembers she’s meant to be gathering a DNA sample.

“I- uh, I need your saliva,” she says while, behind her, Fitz is breaking apart the standard issue comm receiver. 

Grant Ward is quite a bit taller than her and it makes her think of Brock, of the first time they stood face to face with her in socked feet and how she laughed, how he looked at her and touched her like he was afraid of breaking her. Her heart twists in her chest.

“Well that’s one way to ask.” The wry comment startles Jemma out of her memories and she blinks in pleased surprise as he winces. “Sorry,” he says, “that wasn’t me, it was…” He trails off, looking conflicted.

“A cover?” she guesses. Brock’s work doesn’t often take him undercover but when it does he sometimes has trouble breaking himself of it afterward. 

“Yeah.” He seems surprised she’d realize so quickly, which makes sense, she supposes. Even in SHIELD, it’s rare for scientists to know operatives as well as she does. “Sometimes it makes it easier,” he admits, “when I’m nervous.” 

Oh. He’s somewhat adorable, isn’t he? All that strength and intimidation and beneath it another normal, human person, nervous on their first day of work.

She scrunches her nose. “I’m not sure it was terribly helpful this time.” She lifts the q-tip and he obligingly bends so that she can more easily take her sample.

His eyes are very brown and very warm and remain fixed on her while she works. Butterflies break out in her stomach.

She moves to put the sample safely away with all the rest and finds Fitz has made himself practically invisible at the far side of the lab. It’s sweet of him, but Jemma does wish he’d instead opted to make a nuisance of himself - especially when Grant Ward follows her.

“I know this is all kinds of weird, but-”

“Agent Ward.” Agent Coulson’s stern voice cuts through the lab. In the time Jemma’s back has been turned, a red convertible has pulled into the cargo bay alongside the standard SHIELD van. “Upstairs in-” his eyes move to Jemma and his lips curl into a slight smile- “make it ten. We’re heading out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Coulson leaves without another word, and Jemma finds herself trapped. With the mess the lab is still in, she can’t escape to the right without climbing over the cases holding the DWARFs, and while she isn’t exactly being crowded, there is a part of her that cannot step closer to Grant Ward, even to step around him.

She studies him. His head is bowed, but their height discrepancy means she still has an excellent view of those dark brows and sharp cheekbones. The hand he has splayed on the counter next to her is very large, and she recognizes the angry spots of red on the knuckles as meaning he’s been in a physical fight quite recently.

Slowly, he drags his eyes up from her feet to her face and she tries to hide how it makes her shiver; though there’s nothing sexual or probing in it at all, only hesitation. 

“Did you get my letter?” he asks in a breath.

The warmth his proximity lent her is gone, replaced by a chill. Six weeks after her second soulmark appeared, she received a hand-written letter from him. In it, he politely asked whether she was the bearer of a corresponding mark and then he preemptively laid out the facts of his work - the limitations it put him under regarding free time, the danger involved, all the things Brock tried for so long to shield her from - before asking whether she’d like to meet. 

She read it eighteen times before shoving it in the back of her sock drawer and never looking at it again.

At the time, she told herself it was the right thing to do. She had Brock, she didn’t need anyone else, soulmark or no soulmark. Brock was her soulmate and the man she loved and entertaining the idea of being with someone else would only - despite his understanding over the situation - hurt him. Now, seeing the hurt in Grant Ward’s eyes, she realizes she’s done exactly the thing she was trying not to: she’s injured her soulmate. 

“Right,” he says with a false little smile. He steps back and, as his shadow falls away from her, she feels like he’s left her in the heart of winter. “That’s okay. I understand. You won’t hear anything about it from me again. It was nice to meet you, Agent Simmons.”

Her heart twists all over again at the _agent_ and she can’t bear to let him go like this. “I have another soulmate,” she says in a rush, taking a step after him before he can make the doors.

He pauses and turns, confusion wrinkling his brow.

“He’s a specialist, like you. We met years ago and I- I didn’t know what to do.” She looks down at her hands. “I’m sorry.”

It can’t be more than a few seconds before he speaks, but it feels like much, much longer. “So … that’s why you never contacted me?”

There’s no accusation in the question, though that doesn't stop her feeling some. How long did she spend hurting because Brock refused to have anything to do with her? And now she’s gone and done the same.

She steels herself and takes another step forward; they’re close enough now they could reach out and touch hands, but it still feels like a canyon stands between them. “I didn’t say it was a _good_ reason,” she says. 

He stares, taking her in with narrowed eyes. Finally he sighs and his shoulders relax as he folds his arms. “You’re gonna have to give me something here. Do you want me to back off or-”

“No!” she says so suddenly she startles the both of them. She puts a hand to her mouth. She spent so long convincing herself she only needed Brock, she never stopped to consider that maybe she might want her other soulmate as well. She shakes her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know what I want, exactly. Do you think we could … get to know each other?”

His serious expression lightens, just a touch, and she almost sees a smile. “I’d like that,” he says earnestly. “But now I’ve gotta…” He gestures to the stairs.

“Right, right. Good luck.”

She watches him until she can’t see him anymore and then fixes her eyes on the now-closed cargo bay doors. “Not a word,” she says firmly.

“I wasn’t gonna say anything,” Fitz says innocently.

She doesn’t believe it for a second.

 


	89. kiss ficlets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few kiss prompts that were too short for their own chapters.
> 
> NSFW warning.

**a hipbone kiss**

“What if it doesn’t work?” she asks and Grant mentally chalks this one up as a failure. Oh sure, the orgasm was great, but any sex that doesn’t distract her from the hopelessness of their situation for at least half an hour afterward isn’t good enough.

“It’ll work,” he says as he stretches to reach the canteen hanging from the edge of his cot a few feet away. That’s just some of the shit they found when they fell (literally) into these caves. Whatever happened to the astronauts who used to live here, Grant’s sure grateful they left their toys behind. It makes hell almost homey.

Jemma’s head tips his way and, since she’s using his thigh as a pillow at the moment, her hair tickles his cock. “You don’t know that. You have absolutely no evidence-”

“Jem,” he says firmly, “you cured an uncurable alien disease in under two hours.”

“It obviously wasn’t uncurable if I-”

“You saved Amador. You kept Skye alive. You found a way to stop Peterson without killing him. You went undercover in HYDRA. Hell, you survived alone on this rock for two months before I showed up. You’re gonna do this.” Grant’s lied about a lot of things - a lot of them to Jemma herself - but this isn’t one of them. He’s never once seen her fail (okay, that one time she tried to kill him, but she still killed _somebody,_ so it counts) she’s got this.

(He’s _so_ sure she’s got this, in fact, that he’s halfway through his revenge plans. Malick’s first for shoving him through the portal to this hellhole, and after him is every member of that other SHIELD who ever even  _looked_ at the monolith. As far as Grant’s concerned, their negligence is directly responsible for landing Jemma here and they’re all gonna pay.)

She never did blush easy, but she’s a lot more open now than she was back on Earth. Casual intimacy born of isolation will do that to a person. She drops her eyes, tucks her chin, and rolls to her hands and knees to stand. One the way, she presses a kiss against the mark she left on his hip two days back and he has to bite back something that’s halfway between a grimace and a smile - the grimace because there’s no way he’s getting it up again today, and the smile because just the memory of her teeth and her tongue is enough to leave him wishing he could. 

She’s _mean_ now, a lot more than she was back on the Bus. He doesn’t know if that’s up to the planet or HYDRA or him or a combination of the three, but he likes it.

 

 

**a violent kiss**

 

Jemma is trying very, very hard not to listen. She sings songs in her head - and, when that fails to work, out loud - and wishes with all her might that she could go spontaneously deaf. It would be far preferable to hearing-

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

For a brief moment she thinks she might have actually gotten her wish but then she recognizes the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears and that gives way to heavy footsteps and then the doors are thrown open before her. Grant strides in and perhaps he gives some signal she doesn’t catch, but she thinks it rather more likely that the guard he set on her is smart enough to know when he should make his exit because abruptly they are very alone.

“Fitz?” she asks, afraid to hope, afraid to fear.

His mouth tips up on one side in an ugly facsimile of the expression she used to love. “He’s alive, no thanks to you.”

Her head hits the pipe she’s been chained to and she looks away. It _isn’t_ her fault. HYDRA are the ones torturing him, not her. Giving them the information they want so dearly, _that_ would make her complicit in the crime; this is merely her doing the only thing she can to protect the world.

The refusal to hand over the information they want sits on her tongue, but she won’t give it, not until he asks. If they’ve cut off the torture so she can be questioned again, she’ll let it last as long as he likes; facing her husband is the least she can do if it will spare Fitz some pain.

In the years since the uprising, Grant’s developed a habit of staring at her whenever they’re in the same room, so it’s rather surprising when he looks down. She follows his gaze and finds he’s holding a tablet - from the looks of it, the one Fitz carried with him when they went to investigate NASA’s records on the monolith. It’s tipped so that she can’t make out  what he’s reading but it makes him smile in a way she doesn’t like at all.

He lifts his eyes to her again as he turns the tablet around. Jemma’s heart somehow both leaps and sinks.

Leaps because it always does when she looks at this particular image and sinks because if there is one person on Earth she never wanted to know of Will’s existence, it’s Grant.

He huffs out a laugh. “You know, I was gonna ask if you’d fucked him, but I pretty much just got my answer, didn’t I?”

She forces herself to look away from her and Will’s smiling faces, to focus instead on Grant. She needs to understand what he’s thinking if she - if _anyone_ \- is to survive this, but he gives her no chance to figure it out.

He’s on her in a moment, kissing her so fiercely she can feel his teeth pressing against hers. She tries to turn away but his hand is in her hair, his fingers pulling, his nails digging in. Instinct has her opening her mouth to spare herself the pain, and his tongue slips inside before she can realize the mistake of it. 

His body presses her farther back against the pole, forcing her shoulders to bend around it even more sharply than the cuffs alone demand. His knee is slotted between her thighs, keeping up pressure in just the right place to have her grinding down in a futile attempt to find some small measure of release. 

Her body knows his, knows the lovely things he can make her feel with nothing more than a crook of his fingers and a kiss in the right spot. 

As excuses go, it’s not much of one but it’s all she has.

The kiss ends before it has to, before her lungs have begun to truly burn and before she’s had more than a fleeting taste of the pleasures she swore she’d never let him give her again. The crude sound of his mouth leaving hers hangs ugly in the air between them when he steps back, leaving her cold and shamed.

“You’re _my_ wife,” he practically growls. The way he looks at her, it reminds her of his blow-up after his initial exposure to the berserker staff and something in the animal part of her brain tells her to remain perfectly still.

He seethes, his whole body moving with each breath as he stares at her, thinking she doesn’t know what sorts of things. Finally, he turns on his heel to stalk out without another word, and only when the door stops its swinging does she breathe again.

Her relief doesn’t last long; Fitz’s screaming starts anew a moment later.

 

 

 **a kiss that never happened** (only sort of biospec)

 

It’s probably not a good idea to stare at his would-be god while she’s naked, but she obviously didn’t care enough to wrap up in a towel before coming out of the bathroom so she can’t mind that much.

The excuse is an afterthought though, he’s a little busy being transfixed by the sight of her chest to worry about what she’s thinking.

She stops at the edge o the bed and throws a flirty smile over her shoulder. “Does it look right?” She turns, holding her arms wide - so yeah, she doesn’t care.

Against his will, Grant’s eyes mark the smooth skin of her chest where the bullet hole used to be, trace the achingly feminine curves, follow the lines of the toned legs, land on the dark hairs between them-

“Yeah,” he says, forcing himself to look to the still steaming mess by the door. “Yeah, it looks right.” The bodies - three women, two men, all in the prime of life - are utterly unrecognizable. The bones are dark, charred, and the smell hanging in the air is some strange mix of woody and sweet.

“Are you sorry?” she asks, approaching him with more grace than Simmons ever possessed. “That the scars you left are gone?”

He flinches - which isn’t at all like him. He needs to get a handle on things, but that becomes a hundred times harder when he meets her eyes. He can feel her in his head. It’s almost like the berserker staff, but it doesn’t flood over him; it’s controlled, like a more prolonged version of that moment Lorelei touched him.

Her mouth curls down in a moue that washes away when she steps still closer. “They’re not.” Her knuckles draw a line down his cheek. “The physical ones, perhaps, but the rest, they’re still here.” There’s a hint of bitterness in her tone that, accompanied with the smell still hanging in the air, doesn’t bode well.

He swallows. “Are you expecting an apology? I did what I had to to get you home.”

She smiles. “And we appreciate that.” Her eyes narrow and she turns away, hips swaying as she returns to the bed and the robe laid out there. “Don’t you wonder why you’re here? Why we keep you close when all the rest are Inhumans?” She lifts her hand and crooks two fingers almost absently, beckoning him forward.

He comes, like a good little soldier.

“You’ve done me a great service,” she says, “and you should be rewarded.”

“Ma’am-” he starts and cuts off when a piercing pain slashes through his skull.

“ _Oh_ ,” Simmons snaps, but that doesn’t hurt; if anything it anchors him, pulls him out of the black. “I told you to tell me if you’d been hurt.” She tuts as she hurries about the lab, grabbing an ice pack from the fridge along with a light to see better.

“Just a little head wound,” he says, hoping if he smiles it’ll cut through the anger still simmering under his skin. It doesn’t. 

Worse, she sees it. She sets her burdens down on the table next to him and stares up into his face, probing. “There’s only so much I can do to counter the effects of the staff,” she says delicately.

“I told you, I don’t want a sedative. I can’t protect you if I’m less than a hundred percent.”

She frowns like she’s thinking of arguing he’s less than that now, but she doesn’t. It’s not like Simmons not to say what’s on her mind, and he’s about to try cajoling her out of it when she lifts her hand. She hasn’t put her gloves on yet and her skin is warm against his cheek.

“Simmons-” he says, but then her hand’s wrapping around the back of his neck and her mouth’s against his and that simmering rage turns into a tidal wave of _want_.

He’s up, off the stool, and pushing her back into the lab bench, never once breaking the kiss. Her hips strain against his hands and he has the sense to lift her up onto the edge of the table. Which is just a _great_ decision because now her breasts are pressing into his chest and her arms are wrapped around his waist and his head like she can’t get him close enough and her hips are grinding against his and _fuck_.

He slides his hands under her shirt - all those conservative sweaters and collared shirts and he knew there had to be a woman’s body under them somewhere. Her skin’s so baby smooth it sends all sorts of wild, impossible thoughts about her being untouched through his head. 

He’s seen her file, he knows she’s not that at all. There was Schleicher when she was fresh out of the Academy and Palacencia last year at the Cube and if Trip never got at least a make-out in a closet, Grant’ll eat his shoe. And he knows she was fucking that Daniels guy on the planet and it’s not like Grant himself hasn’t touched her - not like the rest, but he left his mark.

Only it’s not there. The things he did to her, there should be scars. There _were_ scars.

He stumbles back and has to stop himself before he hits the mess of bodies still on the floor.

She’s still perched on the edge of that shelf behind her bed. Her legs reach slowly to the floor and she eases off, her movements delicate, controlled. Her brand new skin still shows sign of his hands on her.

“I wanted you so desperately back then,” she says. “So many missed opportunities.” This time when she goes for the robe, she actually puts it on. “And now I have you. No pesky morals or silly, mortal grudges to get in the way. It’s like … being freed from a prison.” She smiles, inviting him to join in the joke.

He only stares.

She heads for the door, pausing along the way to rest a familiar hand on his chest.  “I have work to tend to; would you see to it the mess is cleaned up? We’ll finish this later.”

He waits until the door slides shut to let himself stumble forward. His palms hit the shelf and he leans heavily against it, dragging in his breath and trying to get himself the hell under control.

 


	90. things you said after you kissed me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Speculative season 3b fic

“Leave her!” he barks and the guards snap to attention and hurry from the dark van. Jemma’s long since stopped being impacted by his voice. It’s Ward’s but … it’s not. Not at all. Sometimes the creature purposefully pretends, when he’s trying to cajole her ( _flirting_ with her, but she doesn’t want to call it that, doesn’t want to think about the promises he’s made her or the patience with which he regards her refusals), but for the most part his voice, his expressions, his mannerisms are all very obviously _not Ward_.

When he’s in a demanding mood, his voice is usually a little more thunderous than this, but the subdued tone might have to do with their location. He’s brought this late night field trip - he _literally_ dragged her from her bed - to a halt in a decrepit, rundown section of town. She tries not to imagine why and, to that end, doesn’t bother paying attention to the cluster of guards gathered beside the van.

She’s learned that a lack of response is her best defense. If she doesn’t engage, he can’t wheedle his way under her skin. (Figuratively, of course. When he’s angry, like he was today after SHIELD ambushed him with a new weapon, she can see the shadow of something moving under his skin. She thinks that might be the real him.)

Something strikes the door hard, startling her so badly she jumps. Blood streaks the window and, through it, she can see him cutting the throat of the man who drove them here. The rest of the guards - the ones she can see - are dead around him.

Before she’s even consciously makes the decision to act, to _run_ , her hands are scraping at the buckle of her seatbelt. The strap catches on her arm, spinning her out the door she’s already got half-open and then he’s there, pushing her up against the side of the van and holding her in place with his body.

No, not his. _Ward’s_. He’s only stolen it, just as he stole Will’s and used it to trick Fitz into showing him the way home. She doesn’t mourn Ward, doesn’t feel the least bit sorry for how he met his end, but she feels a very human indignity that this creature is walking around in his remains.

Worse, he’s back to acting the part. It could easily be her imagination; Ward pushing her up against a wall like this was once a frequent fantasy of hers, maybe he’s read that in her mind (she can feel him sometimes, sifting through her thoughts like sand) but the look in his eyes has none of the false sincerity Ward wore on the Bus. It reminds her more of the last time they met, all anger and desperation for the answers she staunchly refused to give up. Somehow that disparity between her fantasies and the reality makes it more difficult to tell herself he’s not real.

The kiss he takes doesn’t help either.

She imagined kissing Ward frequently on the Bus, more than she would be comfortable admitting even if he hadn’t turned out to be a traitor, but it was only daydreams, never reality. And, for all the heavy looks and insinuations and outright promises that one day she would come to his bed, the monster that’s been holding her captive for the past month hasn’t kissed her either. It’s pride, she thinks. He wants her to know she’s given in so she can’t deny anything between them.

It was, frankly, a horrible plan. Perhaps he’s gone that route because he wasn’t a good kisser in his first body, but Ward’s is _excellent_. He dwarfs her and it’s easy to lose herself in him. One large hand moves from the window to her hair, cushioning her head against the glass and doing the most wonderful things against her scalp. But that is a lie because his lips and his tongue are making it difficult for her to think of anything but _them_ and _him_ and how to get her hands beneath his shirt. And then there’s the _heat_. It radiates off him, blanketing her in warmth despite the cold night air, and adding to the fire already building under her skin. Which is odd, she would have expected a corpse, even one that’s walking around to be-

She’s kissing a  _corpse_.

He senses her disgust and breaks the kiss before she can. She’s still up against the van and can’t move to put any distance between them.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling at her lower lip with the pad of his - _Ward’s_ \- thumb.

He steps purposefully back and she remains where she is. The van is reassuringly solid at her back and, frankly, the only thing keeping her upright. The cold sweeps over her in his absence, but it’s his smug grin that sends a chill sizzling along her spine.

“I just really wanted to do that-” he gestures to the side of his head- “before he wakes up.”

“Who?” she asks, confused. Rightly, she should return to her standard defense of non-engagement, but the state of his shirt and its many undone buttons are a testament to her failures on that front.

“The bastard who’s been wearing me like I’m his favorite pair of jeans?” he asks with a raised eyebrow that is, like all of his mannerisms at the moment, utterly Ward.

“You’re-”

“Free?”

“Alive!”

He shrugs. “Sorry to disappoint.” He doesn’t sound it in the least. “Whatever May hit him with this afternoon, it weakened him. Two hours ago I woke up - _me_ , in control.”

“Is he … dead?” she asks, daring to hope.

“No. I can still feel him.” He taps the side of his head. “He’s sleeping - dreaming, I think. He’ll wake up soon.”

That’s certainly a disappointment - and Ward being alive is something of one as well - but she can’t say she’s surprised. With the way her luck’s been recently, any weakness at all is a miracle.

Ward holds out a gun to her, followed by a cell phone. “Take the van, head north, call the team, and keep putting as much distance as you can between us. Once he wakes up, he’s gonna be-” Ward smiles gleefully- “a _very_ mad Inhuman.”

“You’re letting me go?” The gun is heavy in her hand. She could kill him with it - or she could shoot him and instantly reawaken the thing inside him. It is tempting though.

“Someone has to tell the team their weapon wasn’t completely useless. Besides, with you there, they’ll probably be able to make a version that actually works.”

She ignores the praise. “You were dead. Coulson killed you but now-”

“He was dead,” Ward says, something like kindness in his voice. “I’ve got all of that thing’s memories, and your space boyfriend was dead. He never knew what happened to his body.”

He could be lying - it’s Ward so he’s almost definitely lying - but she allows his words to comfort her all the same.

“You’re wasting time, Simmons.”

Yes, she is and she really can’t afford to. She rounds the van, ignores the gore lying in the street and the squelching of wet beneath her shoes in the midst of a heatwave and climbs in the driver’s side. She gets the car started and, on impulse, rolls down the passenger window. Ward leans his arms against the door to hear what she has to say.

“Why did you kiss me?” It’s a silly question, utterly pointless under the circumstances and is costing her valuable escape time, but there’s a part of her that needs to know.

“Because that sick bastard really wants to and when he wakes up, he’s not only gonna know he’s vulnerable, he’ll know I got the one thing he’s been panting for all these weeks.”

It’s such a Ward reason that she can’t even be insulted; she should’ve known.

“And,” he says, tapping the door once as he steps back, “all that awkward flirting you did on the Bus? I’d be crazy not to at least have thought about it.” His tone implies he thought about more than just kissing her.

She puts on her most condescending face, the one she perfected in grade school when adults tried to call her computations “cute,” and puts the van in gear. It’s absurd to think she can feel Ward’s eyes on her until she turns off of the street. It’s even more absurd to feel a faint stirring of satisfaction in her gut.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically the prompt for this - things you said after you kissed me - was Maveth/Jemma but they did give me the option of Will! or Ward!Hive so... yeah, I still cheated.


	91. ten sentences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shineyma prompted Jemma/Grant for the ten sentence meme, which is to write a one sentence fic for each of ten prompts

**Angst**

Sitting in her room after the hugs and the “welcome homes” and the “I can’t believe  _you_  went undercovers” have died down, she stares at her hands, uncertain she has the strength to take off her wedding band a second time.

 

**AU**

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate being rescued from the dragon, it’s just that I was rather hoping my rescuer would be a standard, sworn to chivalry white knight - not a murderer who likely stole that armor off an old man too senile to notice it’s gone missing.”

 

**Crack**

“Serious science question,” Skye says, “if you can feel each other’s feelings, does that mean if you had sex like this it would be, like, _whoa_?”

 

**Future fic**

She never brings flowers to his grave, but she brings herself and that’s more than he deserves.

 

**First Time**

She’s still shaking from the adrenaline crash - her best friend was nearly left for dead by the organization she swore her life to, it’s a lot to take in - so when she grips his aching arm for support, he lets things escalate until he has her shaking for a better reason.

 

**Fluff**

There’s this look she’ll give him sometimes - just tips her head back and stares - and he knows she’s waiting for him to pick her up so she can kiss him the way she wants.

 

**Humor**

There is a human brain in his fridge (yes, he’s sure it’s human), stuffed right in between the milk and last night’s meatloaf, and he’s beyond the point of caring.

 

**Hurt/Comfort**

He’s a monster - killed Hand, murdered Koenig, kidnapped Skye - but his is the only voice here that’s familiar, his are the only arms that offer comfort, and she’s so tired of fighting _everything_  here that she can’t find the strength to fight him too.

 

**Smut**

_Note to self_ , Jemma thinks as Grant’s face disappears beneath the scrap of fabric Skye forced on her earlier this evening, _Grant has a thing for skirts._

 

**UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension)**

Some small part of her is relieved when he breaks his promise and takes Giyera’s place; maybe _this_  will finally cure her of wanting him.

 


	92. five minute fics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I asked for one word prompts and wrote quick drabbles between five and ten minutes. (Or sometimes more. A lot of the time more.)

**sew**

“Just do it,” she says, though her voice is already high and thin with fear.

Ward, rather than follow her order and just _begin already_ , slides his hand from her bare shoulder all the way down her arm. The lingering contact is just the sort of thing that clutters her dreams these days and it sends a wave of tingling awareness through her. The pleasure collides with the pain in her back and she has to bite back a sob.

He lifts her hand and rests it on his thigh beside her. She’s always very aware of his body - of their proximity in the lounge, of where her hands land when she’s working on him in the lab - and habit has her instantly trying to lift away. He presses his hand over hers (he’s so _strong_ ), encasing it in warmth. She blames the headiness she feels on the addition of his body heat to the humidity already making her skin sticky.

“Hold on,” he says. “Keep your jaw loose and when you wanna clench from the pain, you do it _here_.” He presses her hand down.

“I’ll hurt you,” she points out. She may not be as strong as he is, but she can still do some damage.

“Well,” he chuckles, “I’ll be hurting you, so I think this’ll make us even.” From the corner of her eye she sees him readying her field suture kit and she swiftly turns her head to face front.

He drags his stool a little closer to hers and brushes her ponytail over to the front of her shoulder.

“Don’t hold your breath, but try not to make any noise, either.”

“Right,” she says. Her pulse is drumming so loud in her ears she can barely hear herself think.

She makes it three stitches before the dingy wall ahead of her disappears and her vision whites out. Another two before she loses track of current events entirely. She holds onto him through it all though.

 

 

**blindfold**

“Ah, here she is!”

Bloody hell. Jemma was hoping they were taking her to a torture chamber; it would be less annoying than listening to her captor taunt her again. He’s obviously a complete idiot and has yet to make the slightest bit of sense.

“You’ll love this,” he says - not to her, thankfully; his voice is pitched towards someone ahead of her, though it is drawing nearer. Can’t he just leave her alone while he waits for May to kill him for the dual crimes of kidnapping one of her teammates and interrupting her vacation?

Jemma is no sooner forced into and handcuffed to a chair than the blindfold she’s been wearing ever since her last talk with the great fool is torn away. Bright light floods her vision and, as it seems everyone is waiting on her reaction, she takes her sweet time adjusting. 

When her eyes are finally capable of focusing, she has to do a double-take to be certain she’s not hallucinating. 

“Hi, honey,” Ward says. It is, in fact, him sitting across from her and her second glance proves that he too is restrained.

“Aw,” her captor coos. He’s behind her now and she startles when his cold hand caresses her collar bone. “Such a touching reunion.”

Ward’s smile sharpens - a considerable feat given that it was already plenty intimidating. “Sowell here is under the impression he can get to me through you.”

“Well she is your wife.”

Jemma groans and lets her head fall back, which has the added benefit of disrupting the way Sowell is playing with her hair. “Not that bloody marriage again. We were on a mission! It was for the _cover_!”

Ward makes no comment; which chills Jemma more than the tray of medical instruments between them. The last time the subject came up, he was ready with false hurt that she could care so little for their vows. That he isn’t acting similarly now gives her some indication of how bad this situation truly is.

“I guess it was,” Sowell pouts. He pulls her left hand back painfully against the cuff to show Ward her lack of ring. “But if I know Ward here at all-”

“You’d know you’re already dead for this stunt,” Ward bites out.

“-he’s a possessive son of a bitch.” Sowell picks up a scalpel from the tray. “Doesn’t have to love you to own you. So let’s see how long it takes to break Ward’s toys, shall we?”

Jemma never thought it was possible, but sitting in a room with Grant Ward, she’s found someone she hates more than him.

 

 

**yesterday**

“It’s okay,” Grant says and pulls her to his chest. She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she feels her tears melting into his shirt. 

Did she cry yesterday? When she learned that the organization she gave her life to was a lie? She can’t remember. Her head injury has left a gaping hole in her memory where yesterday should be and no matter how she concentrates, her efforts only serve to worsen her headache. 

If she did cry, there was no Grant to comfort her. He’s been trying, in his recitation of events, to skim over the fact of his imprisonment on the Bus, but she didn’t miss that detail. He was locked away just in time for a signal to go out, one that turned friends- No. _Exposed_ friends as enemies. He was of no use to their team, unable to protect Skye or Fitz…

His hand slides up and down her back, warming her shock-chilled skin. She’s _glad_  she can’t remember yesterday. The headache she could do without, but at least this way she has Grant to hold onto through her shock and pain. To, even, provide her with hope.

While she clings to the front of his shirt and mourns all that’s been lost, he tells her about Garrett’s distrusting nature, how it prompted him to make friends in private industry. He tells her about the lab already waiting for her. Her life will go on. She doesn’t have to run and hide, scramble for purchase in a world gone topsy-turvy. In that, she’s luckier than most loyal SHIELD agents today. And she has Grant. 

She’d rather have more - and their names hover at the edge of her mind like ghosts threatening to frighten her into sobbing anew - but what she has, she thinks might be enough.

 

 

**weakness**

Grant’s gotta keep Simmons talking. Not usually a problem, but as they’re locked in this vault and have both been dosed with Ian Quinn’s new truth serum prototype, it’s kind of important that he speak as little as possible. She’s smart though, knows her loose tongues is looser than normal and is stonewalling him wherever possible.

He can feel the need to talk rising up in him. Like every time Garrett came to visit him in the woods, all the words he’d saved up with no one but Buddy to talk to would come bubbling to the surface and threaten to leave him looking like some overeager kid who’d missed his dad. He long ago learned to deal with those feelings, with that need to connect with another human being - or he _thought_ he had. Frustration is making his tongue sharp and his cover slip and it’s all the more reason he needs to get her talking already.

“All right,” he says into the silence, hoping he comes off teasing, “because I know you’ve gotta tell me: you get sick of Fitz, don’t you?”

“ _What?_ ” She looks scandalized he’d even ask but it’s the way the word makes her breasts heave - this vault is _very_ warm and the collar of that blouse she’s wearing is _very_ low to get them past the guards - that draws his attention. “Why do you say that? Fitz is like a brother to me!”

Grant scoffs. “Yeah, I’ve got brothers.”

She winces and squirms in her spot on the hard floor. The motion does wonderful things for her breasts.

“I mean because it seems like you find excuses to be in the lab without him. The two of you always stay up late working but you’re up early most days.”

A blush flares in her cheeks. “Oh. That.”

“What?” he presses, hoping _this_ will be the thing that gets her talking.

“That’s actually due to you.” She winces again, biting her lower lip as if that could pull back the words. 

“Me?”

She nods, pained. “I- I’m using you.” It’s like a dam breaking. Once she’s started the rest all comes spilling out. (Thank God.) “I’ve always had a weakness for Operations types, but all of my relationships with them up to this point have ended _terribly_. I was hoping, being on a field team, the constant proximity would allow me to desensitize myself to the-” she waves a hand up and down him- “visual.”

“So,” he says slowly, “you wake up early to … ogle me.”

She gasps, horrified. “Yes!” She slaps a hand over her mouth. He’s pretty sure that’s _not_ what she meant to say.

He chuckles. He knew she was watching - the lab’s ten feet away from where he works out and he’s not _blind_ \- and while it’s something of a blow to discover she’s doing it to _desensitize_ herself, he refrains from asking if she’s succeeding in her mission. _That_ would be completely out of character for his cover. So he soothes his pride by asking something more in keeping with his cover’s concerns.

“And when you say ‘terribly,’ you mean…?”

She easily fills the remainder of their time trapped in here with stories of her exes, and Grant - the real Grant - leaves with a list of Operations agents who need to learn how to treat a lady.

 

 

**leave**

Jemma and Kenneth have been tapped to join a team working on a cure for the latest designer bioweapon. HYDRA tends to get rather ahead of itself in that regard, only realizing _after_  a weapon’s been made near-undefeatable, that they might need a cure should one of their own - someone who  _matters_ , a Whitehall or a Bakshi, not any of the foot soldiers or technicians - be infected. As such, Kenneth has informed her these types of teams are often brought together and their work, while less glorious than the _creation_ of the weapon, can be more advancing - depending on who gets infected, of course.

Unfortunately, this particular bioweapon is, in a word, a bitch. They’ve been at it for three days straight and still nothing.

“What if-” Tad, one of the younger doctors in the room begins. Such false starts have become the norm over the last seventy-two hours, so Jemma pays it no mind. Not, that is, until a second voice speaks.

“ _Leave_.” 

Jemma whirls in her seat, only to then remain frozen while all the rest rush out. She doesn’t blame them; if anyone else’s MIA specialist husband suddenly reappeared, she’d be eager to give them privacy as well.

Of course, Jemma imagines she's the only one present who is also a mole working for the very people who held her husband prisoner. 

Kenneth is the last out, shooting her a smile over Grant’s shoulder. She does her best to return it - she should be happy, shouldn’t she? Not that her cover matters much now. If Grant’s stony expression is anything to go by, he knows exactly what she’s doing here.

He steps back to close the door behind Kenneth. Jemma uses the distraction to turn her chair back around and sets her palms on the tabletop for stability as she stands. Once she’s up, she does the only thing she can and turns to face him with all the strength she can muster.

“Gr-” She’s cut off when he crowds her, forcing her against the conference table. Its edge digs painfully into the backs of her thighs even while she flushes in pleasure at having him so close. She may have spent the last six months telling herself the man who haunts her dreams and her fondest memories is a monster, but her body never got the memo.

He’s not quite clean shaven, but the atrocious beard he grew down in the vault is gone, along with most of his hair. It provides her a clear view of the scar on his forehead.

“We’ll talk,” he says while he tucks some of her own hair behind her ear, “about _everything_ later, don’t you worry about that.”

The dark promise has her swallowing, but she tips her chin higher against her fear.

His hands move to her hips, curling in the loose fabric of her skirt. It’s not her usual work attire, but it’s supposed to be the hottest day of the year and it’s casual Friday besides; she felt a skirt was warranted. 

“But for now,” he says while the hem lifts higher and higher on her thighs, “there are a few things I’ve been dying to give to my wife.”

She’s still in terrible danger but, if nothing else, at least she knows the skirt was absolutely the right decision.

 

 

**billboard**

“We might as well take out a billboard! ‘Disgraced SHIELD agents here!’” Skye is saying when Grant makes it back to the motel.

“What’s going on?” he asks. He throws the duffel from his drop box into the middle of the bed and succeeds in diffusing some of the tension when it nearly bounces Skye right off.

“What is _in_ that thing?” she demands, already pulling at the zipper to investigate first hand.

“I think we should go down to the internet café on the corner,” Fitz says patiently. “There are probably half a dozen anti-government types spending their days there already; our web browsing won’t be noticed.”

“Mine will!” Skye says, lifting her wrist into the air while with her other hand she pulls Grant’s third favorite rifle from the bag. She whistles. 

Grant takes it from her before she can do any damage. “We’ll get that thing off you tonight. I passed a place, guy said he’s no stranger to handcuffs.”

“SHIELD’s tech suppression cuffs aren’t your run of the mill-” Fitz starts but he’s using his annoying engineer voice, so Grant tunes him out and takes a look around. There’s something wrong with this picture - other than the whole living on the run thing they’ve got going since they unanimously agreed Hand’s attempts at finding Coulson weren’t cutting it.

“Where’s Simmons?” 

Skye’s inspecting a stack of hundreds, holding each up to the light in search of proof they’re fakes. “Our room,” she says, waving vaguely over her shoulder at the wall the girls’ room shares with his and Fitz’s. (Grant _tried_ to convince them they should all room together but he was overruled on account of modesty. He hopes they think it’s worth it when an assassin is killing them in the night.)

“I told you to _stay together_ ,” Grant says, the words trailing behind him because he’s already halfway out the door. 

Not only do they have to worry about Hand sending agents to recover them because they’ve gone AWOL, there’s no telling what else Garrett’s got planned for the team now that Coulson’s out of the picture and May’s mysteriously disappeared to the Treskelion. 

“Simmons!” Grant yells as he steps into the room - the door wasn’t even _locked_ , are they _trying_ to die?

Simmons is bent over the bug-out bag she grabbed on their way off the Bus and her posture gives him a really great view of her bare breasts for the full five seconds (Grant counts) before she thinks to pull her fresh shirt to her chest.

“Sorry!” Grant says, her sudden movement reminding him he’s got a cover to maintain. He _could_ look up at the ceiling, but he chooses instead to let his gaze hopscotch all over the room like he’s too dumbstruck to settle it anywhere. His favorite spot to return to is the bathroom mirror. The fog from her shower’s mostly cleared and it gives him a great view of her ass. “You weren’t in the- I was-” He takes a deep breath. “I told you guys to stay together.”

“I haven’t showered since after I put your shoulder back together,” she says, sounding like she’s angry and holding in laughter at the same time. “I felt it was growing necessary.”

“Right. Well, I’ll just-”

“Good idea.”

He steps out - after one final glance at the mirror (she has a _really_ nice ass) - and leans against the wall beside her door. He’ll wait for her to come out on her own; it’s what his cover would do and it’ll give him an excuse to avoid the others while he gets himself under control.

 


	93. five minute fics (part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fics written in five to ten minute bursts.

 

**lace**

 

He can’t seem to tear his eyes off the V of lace and the gentle swell it leaves exposed.

“Grant?” she asks softly.

His eyes bounce up to the ceiling and he makes a little noise that is _not_ a whine; he’s not that pathetic.

But she’s definitely laughing a little when she asks, “Are you all right?” And then her hands are on his arms and his chest, sliding over them with a familiarity that sends fire along his nerves.

“What are you doing?” he asks, voice huskier than he’d like when he forces himself to meet her eyes. The last time he saw Jemma Simmons, she was trying to kill him. And he was trying to kill her. It was a whole murderous mess, made worse by Bakshi’s ashy corpse on the floor.

“Well,” she says, lifting herself up on her toes to lace her hands behind his neck (his hands bracket her hips on instinct and there’s something primal in the pleasure he takes in how perfectly she fits between them), “you’ve been gone so long and I thought I’d welcome you home properly.”

“Properly,” he echoes dryly.

Her flirty smirk widens.

Yeah, this is all wrong.

He pushes her back, deeper into the apartment, all the way to the kitchen island. She’s keeping close, ghosting her hips over his with every step, and that smile barely even falls when he pulls a knife from the block and holds it to her throat.

“Who are you?” he demands. “Because you’re either a really bad imitation or you’re brainwashed, either way someone’s gonna die and a quick answer means it might not even be you.”

“Yes,” a voice Grant’s never heard says. He whirls, keeping his hand pressed to Simmons’ throat, but there’s no one behind him. “She’s not quite right, is she?” The voice, Grant realizes with slowly dawning horror, is coming from _everywhere_.

The apartment fades away. The walls and appliances and little touches of home _melt_. The cheery yellow (that _was_ Simmons’ apartment, he realizes belatedly, the one he saw photos of while going over her HYDRA file) darkens to an orangey brown.

“This should be more immersive,” the voice says. “There are real memories to draw from here.”

“ _What_ should be more immersive?” Grant demands. “ _Who the hell are you?!_ ”

“I’m Jemma Simmons.” The blur of colors clears abruptly and he sees her, standing with her hands around the bars of a make-shift cage. “Doctor Jemma Simmons. I’m from Earth and, as you speak English, I imagine you are too.”

Grant thinks, for a brief moment, that he’s seen caves like these before. He’s seen light from down below like that and felt this same dry warmth in the air. He thinks none of this is real.

But then he’s turning and walking away from Jemma Simmons and her yelling, pleading, and he doesn’t believe she’s real at all, just another trick of this evil place.

 

 

**stars**

 

The last hit is so bad he sees stars and completely loses track of up from down, left from right. Soft hands catch him, try to support his weight, and he reaches out to catch _her_ instead, to bend over her and keep her _right here_.

The pervert in the doorway says something Grant’s not steady enough to translate, but it’s nothing good, that’s for sure. The door closes though, so that’s something.

“Ward,” Simmons says and he realizes he’s holding her tight enough to bruise. He doesn’t let her go - _can’t_ , not after what they were coming in here to do to her - but he does loosen his hold and slide his hands over the skin that’s sure to be dark come morning. The torn fabric has him seeing red - just in time for his vision to clear too.

“I’m going to kill them,” he says, fingering the ripped sleeve.

She likes this blouse because _he_ likes it. She always makes a point of putting herself where he’ll see her first thing in the day when she’s got it on. And those bastards tried to tear it off her so they could-

Her hands are on his face, feather-light on the swelling that’s already started. “You need to sit down. I can’t _believe_ you’re still on your feet after that blow.”

He lets her guide him to the tiny cot they get to share in here. He’ll sit if she wants, just so long as he can keep a hold of her. If he can just keep her with him, he can keep her safe. 

He knows, logically, that’s not really gonna work in this place, but at the moment it seems sound.

“Are you hurt?” he asks.

She shakes her head, barely even listening now that she’s got her doctor face on. She’s so distracted she doesn’t notice the hands he keeps on her hips either.

“You must have a concussion at the very least. What were you _thinking_?”

 _Now_ she notices his hands. They tighten so bad she jumps and goes all wide-eyed, the way she does whenever she’s caught off guard by the realities of field work. So every mission. She gets this way _every_ mission.

“I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you,” he promises. 

Her expression softens into a smile. “That’s sweet, but neither of us are in much of a position to make promises here. We’ll have to count on the team to get us out of this and _take care of ourselves_  as best as possible in the meantime. That means no more daring heroics.”

He nods, pretends to agree.

Rescue or no rescue, he’ll kill the next man who tries to touch her. 

 

 

**coffee**

 

“All right,” Je- _Simmons_ says, stepping up beside his workbench. “How?”

Grant looks up from the bomb he’s got mostly dismantled - it’s not dangerous anymore, but if they’re gonna figure out a way to stop ‘em in the field without putting a pause on everything for a full hour, they need to take a closer look at how they work. “I’m not sure yet,” he says. “Maybe if Fitz was willing to come take a look-”

“He still refuses to acknowledge you’ve been brought back onto the base,” she says with a wave of her hand. He tries and fails not to track its absently graceful movement through the air. “I’m talking about _this_.” She holds out a mug of steaming coffee.

He takes a sniff, determines it’s the brew he made last time he was in the kitchen, and shrugs. “The pot was empty.”

He hopes that’s the end of that - if he’s gonna get in trouble for making coffee, he’s in worse shape than he thought around here - but she huffs and falls onto the crate he uses as a shelf.

“I mean, how is it so _good_? I’ll buy your need for vengeance against the organization that literally stole your life and I’ll even buy that you have a few leftover skills-” she gestures again, this time to the corner of the garage he’s taken for himself- “from the Inhuman’s former hosts, but I _refuse_ to believe you became magically good at making coffee after that swill you used to make on the Bus. So how?”

He can’t help but smile - which is up to more than just the impossibility of answering a question like that; he has a lot of trouble with smiling around her since coming back. There’s something in him - he thinks it might have been Will’s, but it could also have been that _thing’s_ \- that just likes having her around at all, doesn’t matter what she’s doing or saying.

“You want me to tell you I faked being bad at making coffee on the Bus as part of my cover?” he asks in hopes that- yep, there it is - she’ll roll her eyes. 

It’s not the sort of thing he’d say around the others - mention of that year is strictly off limits as far as he’s concerned, no reason to remind them of it when his presence does the job well enough - but he had an inkling she might give him the exasperated half-smile he’s seeing now.

He hides his full-fledged smile in his work. “Well, I didn’t. I got that from-” He hesitates and she sees it for what it is.

“From Will,” she says. She looks away, hands cupped around the cooling mug. 

He hates the look on her face; it reminds him of every time she thought she’d never make it home. And _that_ just reminds him it’s not his memories of Je- of Simmons that haunt him. It’s not his feelings for her that lift his spirits whenever she’s around or his feelings that have him craving her smiles.

She stands and her feet shuffle like they’re making up for her hands being occupied. She makes to leave twice before stopping to say, “Thank you. For bringing him back to me. Even just a little.” Her eyes smile at him over the rim of her mug as she takes a sip.

She leaves him to his bomb and his pounding heart and his resolution to make coffee every day from now on.

 

 

**aware**

Simmons is soft and warm beneath his calloused hands. Her arms are strong around his neck, forcing him to choose between bending and lifting. He pushes her back into the wall, holding her there with his body, and she makes a sound that reminds him of the fall, of the way she clung tight to him, desperate to live even when she knew she was dying.

That sound makes him want to kill someone.

But he’s already killed plenty of people today - _her_ people, SHIELD’s people - and he pours his leftover frustrations into her. He focuses on her lips and her neck, twists his fingers in her hair and pulls her shirt down so he can-

He had a plan. It involved teasing her with his tongue until she couldn’t even remember her own name, but the desperate lust he needed to fuel it is gone, washed away by the sight of dark bruises on pale skin.

He knows what goes on behind closed doors around here. He’s always known, from the first minute that _thing_ came back to Earth. He saw the way its eyes traced Simmons, the hunger in them. It ordered her kept close, brought along and kept almost always at its side. It _touched_ her and Grant knows he wasn’t the only one in the room shuddering at the sight.

So he knew.

But this…

She makes that sound again, more resigned than desperate this time, and shifts her weight so he’ll let her down. “I know,” she says bitterly, “you can’t because I’m _its_.” She’s looking at the shelves stocked with printer toner, not at him.

She’s been here, with them, with _it_ , for weeks now and Grant honestly doesn’t know how they ended up here. All he knows is he’s been feeling sick watching it watch her, watching brave, strong, _feral_ Jemma Simmons get smaller every day and cringe away like some frightened animal in a cage. Maybe he just wanted to see some of the real her again - he didn’t want it like _this_ though.

He brushes his thumb along the scar on her cheek, pulling her gaze up to him. He’s not gonna apologize for the things he’s done to her or even for doing his goddamn  _job_ and bringing that monster to Earth; he’s not that guy. But there is something he  _can_ do.

“I’m gonna make this right,” he says. Her eyes sparkle with something like hope before common sense tamps it down again - he _is_ the bastard who keeps letting her down, even when she’s sure she can’t think less of him.

That she’s right doesn’t make seeing her disappointment any more appealing, so he kisses her again, pulling at her clothes like they never stopped at all. She doesn’t hesitate and the faint smile that curves her lips lets him know he’s doing the right thing.

He won’t let her down, not this time.

He’s gonna kill it. He’s gonna cut off HYDRA’s fucking head. 

 

 

 **[** and an unprompted sequel to 'aware' **]**

 

“If you’re counting on your _god_ to save you-” Coulson says, and Grant’s gotta laugh because there is just nothing about that statement that isn’t hilarious. An hour ago Coulson was convinced _Grant_ was the so-called god - or that it was wearing him like a suit anyway - how fast his tune changes.

Of course, there’s only one reason he’d believe it’s not Grant and that means…

“Jemma,” Grant says, sitting forward. 

He’s chained - ankles and wrists both bolted to the floor - but the containment unit they’ve got him in is for Inhumans and Coulson’s too damn proud to stand outside for the interrogation. Coulson leans back in his seat. 

“You’ve got her?” Grant presses. She was nearby when that super fast bitch knocked him out at the base, but he’d assumed Giyera or someone had swooped in to save her at the last minute. 

“Yes,” Coulson says tightly. “She’s safe. And you’re never touching her again.”

Well that’s a surprise. He didn’t expect Jemma to out and admit they’ve been fucking.

(Grant trips over the word. They’re not _sleeping together_ \- it’s all quickies in closets and, occasionally, when he’s feeling especially suicidal, in the bed she shares with that monster - but fucking doesn’t seem quite right either.)

“Did you think we wouldn’t know?” Coulson asks, barely leashed fury in every line of him. “We saw you on the security feed at Transia and it’s not hard to guess where those bruises came from.”

The Transia thing is a little galling - mostly because it means Grant wasn’t as discreet as he’d like. But that bastard had _hit her_ , right there in front of everyone when she tried to beg for mercy for Hamilton, and Grant … he got mad. 

The bruises bit on the other hand, that Grant’s not about to let go. 

“I never left a mark on her,” he says truthfully, “I never had to.” It was that _thing_ that had to hurt her to get her to behave, for Grant she always came willingly.

“You really expect me to believe that?” Coulson demands. “She’s _covered_ in-”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Grant bites out, “I _know_.” Does Coulson think it hasn’t been _killing_ him? Every time he undresses her, there’s something new, like Hive is _taunting_ him with it. “You think I’m waiting for rescue?” Grant asks, forcing some measure of calm into his tone even though he feels anything but. “The boss doesn’t take too kindly to other people playing with his toys. I hate to break it to you, but you’re saving me just as much as you’re saving her.”

Coulson’s jaw tightens. “If that’s true,” he says after long seconds, “why aren’t you dead yet?”

“Because that’d be admitting it. He’s too damn proud to let everyone know some lowly human’s cuckolding him, so he pretends it’s not happening.” Aside from the beatings he knows Jemma endures. And the missions Grant’s sent on. Last week his whole team literally stepped back out of the line of fire, leaving Grant all alone against a dozen SHIELD agents. Grant left them - and his entire team - dead.

“So, what you’re saying,” Coulson says slowly, “is that in addition to the Inhuman monster raping Simmons, you’ve been raping her too.”

Grant lunges forward, tugging at his chains. This time, Coulson doesn’t blink. “I  _never_ ,” Grant growls. “She came to me willingly. _Every time_.”

If he wasn’t chained, if he wasn’t in this goddamn pod, he’d tear Coulson’s fucking  _face_ off for that. He’d _never_ do that to Jemma and it’s been tearing him up inside knowing someone else has.

Coulson waits. For what, Grant’s not sure, the guy does like his mind games. But eventually he just nods. “Yeah, she said the same thing.”

He gets up and walks out, leaving Grant to wonder what else Jemma said.

 

 

**delight**

 

She shrieks, kicking out at him and nearly sending him tumbling off the end of the bed. The fingers he has trailing up the inside of her calf turn hard, holding her ankle so she can’t try that again.

“This,” he says through a grin, “is what you _get_.”

“Ward- ah!” She cuts off with another cry as the fingers of his free hand travel lower. “I’m sorry,” she pants. “I’m sorry. Please pleasepleaseplease _please_.”

She devolves completely into giggles when he attacks the bottom of her foot with light fingers. She shrieks and twists on the wide medical bed and just when she might cross the line, when her laughter might become too much for her lungs to pull in a real breath, he stops and lowers her leg next to his knees on the mattress.

She stops fighting, spent, and her chest heaves as she smiles down the length of her body at him. “Skye’s right. You’re evil.” 

“ _I’m_ not the reason we’re stuck in here,” he reminds her, his fingers trailing lightly - but not teasingly - along the smooth skin of her calf. It might be too much too soon, but that worry disappears when her smile grows warmer and her eyelids drift a little lower.

“Are you blaming me for the disease that almost _killed_ me? Because that’s a little rude.”

 _She’s_ gotten a little rude during their three days of quarantine in Morocco; he likes it.

“No. I’m blaming you for _insisting_ on the quarantine. And for playing dirty by tickling me behind the ear,” he adds quickly and grabs her leg again.

“No!” she yells. “It was Skye! She told me! Blame her!” But he’s already tickling her again and she’s utterly helpless to fight back. “Please! Ward!”

“Nope, try again,” he says.

He drops off the intensity of his attack so she can think, but it still takes her a few seconds to ask, “What?”

“I’ll stop,” he says patiently, “but you gotta ask _correctly_.”

“I said please!”

He lightens up until his fingers are barely touching her arch. Her mouth drops open on a muted cry and her knee tries to bend her foot out of his hold, but it’s hopeless.

“You said please,” he admits, “ _Ward_.”

Her smile is just as bright as he would’ve hoped. “Please, _Grant._ ”

He lowers her leg and drops his weight back off the bed so his feet land under him. “No problem, _Jemma_ ,” he says, heading for his own bed to finish packing for their release from this hell hole. “Just so long as you never do that again.”

She nods her agreement, still flat on her back and looking like he just did unspeakable things to her with her breath still heavy and her hair a mess and her legs in disarray. He wouldn’t mind seeing her like that again, not one bit.

 

 

 **[** and an unprompted sequel to 'delight' **]**

 

Grant has a problem.

It’s late and the whole team is burnt out. He had to threaten to sedate Jemma to get her away from the med-pod (Skye’s been stable for hours and Jemma hasn’t slept in three days; she’s no good to her anymore) and that only worked because Coulson backed him up with a threat to order May to hold her down for it.

She pouted and complained, but it got weaker the farther up the stairs they went and halfway across the lounge she was leaning heavily into his side. If she thought once about the frat regs that have kept them from so much as setting foot in each other’s bunks all these months, she didn’t say, just went with him into his and stripped to lay down with him.

He’s got her half on his chest, in part because the bunk’s way too narrow for two but also because he hurt his ribs on his other side during the fire fight in that bunker and he’d rather she not know. So he doesn’t complain when her fingers curl around his side, immediately under the sharpest point of pain; he just lets his fingers trace her bare spine and tangle in the loose ends of her hair because he’s beat too.

Skye’s alive. Garrett’s got his miracle cure. Everything’s gonna be fine.

“I love you,” Jemma sighs, the words coming out slurred against his chest.

And that, right there, is Grant’s problem.

Jemma leaps up a moment later, horror bringing her abruptly back to wakefulness. “I didn’t- I mean- oh no.” She covers her face with her hands.

There’s something Grant should be saying. He should be pulling her hands from her face and gently telling her it’s all right, he loves her too. The problem is that he  _wants to_ , that when she said those three little words it was only years of training that kept him from saying it _right away_.

“I’m sorry,” she says from behind her fingers. “I mean-” she drops her hands to her lap and her eyes catch the moonlight from the portholes when she rolls them- “I’m not _sorry_ \- why would I be sorry? - but I don’t expect you to say it, that’s what I mean.” She looks to the door and tears sparkle on her lashes. “I’ve just been thinking about the team and about us and everything and I wanted you to know how much I care about you.” She touches him and it might look to anyone else like she’s trying to seal the words into his heart, but she doesn’t start out there; she starts at his shoulder, at the place he got shot when Coulson was kidnapped, and then makes her way down.

He feels warm and cold all at once. She loves him. She _loves_ him. And it’s not like she’s the first woman to ever say that, to ever believe it, but it means something with her. Somewhere along the line, his pathetically earnest attempts to worm his way into Jemma’s heart became genuinely earnest. He isn’t just pretending anymore, he really wants her.

Which is a problem because this isn’t supposed to be real. This is a mission. She’s a mark - one who didn’t even have what he wanted from her, he shouldn’t be with her at all right now, she’s _useless_ \- and in a few weeks or months this mission’s gonna end, just like every other. Garrett’ll find a way to pull him off the team and that’ll be the end of that, the end of him and Jemma.

He doesn’t want it to be.

“Grant?” she asks, voice straddling the fence between fearful and casual. “You don’t have to say it but I do need you to say _something_.”

He’s probably gonna have to break up with her - that or push her away until she gets fed up and ends things herself. 

He takes her face in hands (that are _not_  shaking, definitely not), laces his fingers in her hair, and pulls her down for a kiss. She wants words, but he can’t give her those, not right now, not while his own feelings are burning a hole in him and the future’s rearing up at them from the shadows. So he kisses her until his lungs burn and she squeaks into his mouth to be let go.

She pulls in a deep breath, hungry for air, and smiles at him through it. “Or that’s good too,” she teases.

Neither of them are up for anything tonight, so she nuzzles into the curve of his neck and settles herself against him again. Her hand curls on top of his chest this time, but his ribs aren’t spared. He holds her hips tight with a hand around her back and his other reaches across his chest, twisting his ribs painfully just so he can rest a hand over her bare shoulder.

When they wake up, late into the next day with the sun shining bright through the portholes, he’s still holding onto her.

 


	94. starter sentence fics (part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On tumblr I asked for a sentence of a fic and in return I would give the next five. I only succeeded in keeping it that short once, but a lot of them were still short enough to be collected in a single chapter instead of spread around.

"I told you we should've taken a left."

Jemma would like very much to yell at Ward, or perhaps even shoot him and be done with it, but both would no doubt bring the townspeople straight to them. What does it matter that the faulty GPS brought them to this hellhole of a town or that Ward, apparently, knew the way to the supposedly secret SHIELD prison better than the rest of them? 

There’s a distant explosion, followed by excited shouts. Jemma tries not to think about Fitz and Skye, who she lost track of nearly an hour ago, or of the bodies they found in that basement. They were alive for a very long time after the process started….

“Simmons?” Ward asks, his voice far more gentle than it was a moment ago. He kneels in front of her, his cuffed hands lifted between them in silent request.

She looks at the cuffs rather than his pleading eyes. There’s no telling how far from the edge of town they are anymore or where they’ll find a working vehicle. Really, the only thing she has to her credit at this point is the one person she fears more than an entire town full of crazed murderers.

“If you betray me,” she says, pulling the key from her back pocket.

“I know, I know. You’ll kill me.” He somehow manages to get off the cuffs and pocket them  _and_  the key before she can blink. And she’s so caught up trying to make sense of it, that she doesn’t notice him moving until he’s got his fingers in her hair and his breath is falling across her face. “Whatever happens, I want you to know that when you die, I’m gonna be the one who does it. Okay?” 

Given what they’re fighting against, it’s a surprisingly comforting statement. She nods, eliciting a wide grin.

“Good. Now let’s go kill some people.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Oh yeah, that he could definitely use.

Grant grabbed the splinter bomb from Simmons’ hand and threw it into the oncoming line of HYDRA soldiers. The results were as terrifying as they were impressive, just as Simmons had described.

“Why did you have that thing, anyway?” he asked, pulling her to her feet. If SHIELD lowered their standards enough for that kind of casual destruction, they had no ground to stand on keeping him out in the cold. (Also, why didn’t _he_ get one of those to bring along?)

“For you,” she sighed, looking like a child just told she couldn’t have a pony for her birthday. 

She couldn’t mean to  _give_  to him, so that only left… “You were going to-”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

He gave her a long, measuring look. Obviously he’d misjudged her. “I’m impressed,” he said finally.

She gaped up at him and it was just the opportunity he needed to grab her sidearm.

“Ah-ah,” he said when she tried to grab it back. He didn’t aim it at her, but he did hold it up, well above her reach. “I can’t really trust you with this, now can I? So for the rest of this mission, you and I are gonna stick together. I’ll keep you alive, and you won’t try to kill me. Deal?”

“I hate you,” she said instead of answering.

“I know,” he said with a smile, and holstered his gun, keeping hers at the ready. “Now let’s go. I’m sure Mike’s wondering where we are.”

Her angry glare was more than worth pretending to care about Peterson.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"I don't think you are doing this hostage thing right."

“And as I’ve told you, Mr. Ward, we’re not holding you hostage. You’re in protective custody.”

“Grant,” he corrects, “ _I’ve_ told _you_ to call me Grant.” He probably should’ve stopped flirting with Cute Green Dress once he realized she wasn’t another trust fund brat and was, in fact, part of the invading force that ruined his mother’s party and kidnapped him. But she’s still cute and he can still remember what her legs look like, even if she’s got them covered up now, and ruining his mother’s party has won her his eternal admiration.

She blushes, and has to look away to say, “ _Grant_. We’re SHIELD. We’re here to protect you from some very dangerous men who want to use you as leverage against your brother.”

And she’s funny too. Damn, he likes her. “Christian  _hates_  me,” he laughs. “He’d never pay a ransom for me. Hell, he’d probably pay the ransom just so they’d finish me off.”

She doesn’t seem to find his dysfunctional family as funny as he does. She worries her lip (which is just mean, really) and glances to the two-way mirror. 

“Oh,” Grant says, his humor fading. “Oh, you think he might’ve actually…”

She turns those big, apologetic eyes on him. “We don’t know anything yet,” she says, resting a hand over his. 

He should probably let her know he’s not so much shocked Christian would pull something like this, as he’s shocked it took the guy so long. But if he does that, she’ll stop touching him, so he plays up his hurt and fear. Maybe that makes him a manipulative ass, but she  _did_  kidnap him. He thinks he deserves something in return.

 

 

* * *

 

 

[This one's a little NSFW.]

 

"I've made worse mistakes."

Jemma gulps audibly as Ward trails a finger along her jaw. “We’re being influenced, somehow,” she says, trying again to dissuade him. “Lorelei is trying to distract us. We have to help the others.”

Ward hums contemplatively into her neck, and her hands grip his shoulders on instinct. “Sif can handle her.” That’s a far cry from what he was saying an hour ago when he was openly questioning whether or not they could trust a woman Coulson met once for less than an hour before she, quite literally, dropped off the face of the Earth.

The shift of Jemma’s clothing over her skin is intolerable all of a sudden, and Ward seems to be on the same page, deftly undoing the buttons of her shirt as he kisses his way down to her breasts. She finally finds out what it feels like to run her fingers through his hair as she holds him in place with one hand, while with the other she reaches behind her back to unclasp her bra. She can feel the edge of his smile along her sternum.

She tries to think, to clear her muddy thoughts now that the annoyance is somewhat lessened. There is something she should be doing, something important, but at the moment nothing seems more pressing than Ward’s knee between her thighs and the promising way he’s holding her against the wall of the Cage.


	95. starter sentence fics (part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just like last chapter, these are prompts of a single sentence to start off a scene (or drop right in the middle of one, usually).

"Babe, put down the cupcake."

“Why?” Jemma asks, the cupcake nearly to her lips. She glances at the now empty box on the table. “They’re not poisoned, are they?”

“No,” Grant says, and instantly regrets it when she takes a big bite. He sighs and props his head on his hand. “But I was kind of hoping to get at least one, seeing as there’s a bounty on my head and I went into an actual store to buy them.”

She licks frosting off her upper lip in slow strokes, her eyes on him all the while. She knows exactly what she’s doing. “And  _I_ ,” she says pertly, “was hoping to be allowed to go outside at some point in the last six months. Life’s full of disappointments.”

He runs a hand over his head. “You know why-”

She holds up a finger to silence him. “Hush. I want to enjoy this.” 

He keeps his mouth shut as she finishes the cupcake off in three long, slow bites. After, she licks each of her fingers to get off even the slightest hint of frosting before letting out a contented sigh.

“All right,” she says. “Now we can fight.”

“We’re  _not_  having a fight. You know why you can’t go outside. It’s too dangerous.”

She heaves herself up from the chair, pausing once she’s vertical to catch her breath. The baby’s tiring her out more and more the closer it gets to her due date.

“Is he okay?” he asks, his eyes on her stomach.

“Fine,” she says with a small smile. “ _She’s_  just hungry.”

He scoffs, more to keep up the ruse that he wants a boy. He really doesn’t care, but Jemma seems to enjoy teasing him about it.

“And we are  _absolutely_  in a fight. We’re going to be in one until this baby is born and I’m not-” She grabs her belly just as a faint splash sounds against the concrete floor. “Oh,” she says faintly.

Grant’s already halfway around the table. He picks her up in his arms. “Looks like you’re gonna get your wish.”

Her grip on him is painfully tight and she buries her face in his neck. 

He squeezes her back more gently. “You can do this,” he says. “And I’m not leaving your side until it’s done. Even if you did eat my cupcake.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Okay, just take a deep breath and reconsider."

Ward neither took a breath, nor reconsidered. His grip on her arm didn’t let up in the least and his pace remained steady despite her attempts at digging her feet in. She tried grabbing for the railing as he pulled her into the lounge, but nearly ended up with a dislocated shoulder.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, figuring if she could get him to answer it would both give her an idea of her fate and of his condition.

“I’m getting you out of the way,” he said dryly, echoing Lorelei’s order exactly. At least now she knew he was still capable of responding to other women.

“And how, exactly, are you going to do that?”

He stopped, fed up with her fighting, and gave her a firm tug that had her falling against him. “Well,” he said flatly.

She chose to ignore his casual arrogance (meanwhile setting aside a theory that Lorelei’s control imposed some of her own characteristics on her victims). She didn’t have time to call him out on his rudeness; she had to get out of this before she was locked up just like Skye - or worse.

Thinking of Skye brought to mind their late night conversation. Neither of them could sleep with Ward missing, so they kept each other up and laughing with silly stories. And, when they couldn’t avoid the problem any longer, wild theories about what Lorelei might be ordering Ward to do that pointedly avoided the obvious. One of Skye’s had involved Ward being cured with a kiss.

There was no time to think through the plan, so, for the first time in her life, Jemma didn’t. She grabbed Ward by his shoulders and pulled herself up to press a kiss against his lips.

He was hard and unresponsive against her, and though his hands moved to her hips, it was only to push her back. Which was fine with Jemma, she was only trying to distract him so she could dig her nails into his back, just below his ribs.

He bellowed in pain. She probably just opened the stitches she’d given him after he came back from his solo mission last week, but she couldn’t care, not with her very narrow window for escape already closing.

She ran for the stairs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

All things considered, it could've gone worse.

They’re both alive, which, in her case, is saying a great deal.

“Well,” she says, still slightly breathless, “I think that takes care of getting them to trust you.”

The raft shifts beneath her as Grant lifts himself up onto his elbows. She keeps her eyes on the sky; the distance is much less intimidating from this angle.

“The plan,” he says slowly, his voice at that low register that lets her know he’s angry with her, “was for me to get shot shielding someone - preferably you.” His tone softens on his final words, and she finally meets his eyes with a small smile. 

After weeks of pretending to be complete strangers, it’s nice to hear him say aloud that he prefers her to the rest of them. The team is nice enough, and she’ll always adore Fitz, but she can’t help feeling rather possessive. Grant’s as nice to her as he is to them, of course (his cover requires it), but when compared to his usual attitude towards her, he’s positively chilly.

She reaches up to run her fingers through his hair. His eyes drift shut. It’s thrilling and crushing to see the way he struggles to put his feelings for her away.

“We can’t,” he says, his voice tight. He doesn’t move to stop her though, which says a great deal for how much difficulty he’s experiencing. 

She sighs and lets her hand fall to her side. If  _he’s_  worried about regaining control, she certainly should be. And so nothing will happen. Nothing at all.

“It’s not forever,” he promises. He’s back to laying beside her and the scant distance between them feels like a canyon. “Just until Garrett’s better.”

She bites back the words she never says. That Garrett’s been sick for years. That just because this miracle cure saved Coulson, doesn’t mean it will save a man in drastically different condition. That Grant really needs to stop waiting at Garrett’s feet for scraps.

Instead of saying any of that, instead of saying anything at  _all_ , she watches the distant clouds.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Someone needs to say it, but it isn't going to be her. Partially because of the hit to the jaw she took earlier, but the gag isn’t helping either. She closes her eyes against what’s coming and the single point of red light remains burned on her vision. A body hits the floor. Followed by another. And another. Soon, Jemma is the only thing breathing in the tiny room.

It takes what seems like forever before the door creaks open and footsteps scrape across the floor. That has to be on purpose. There’s no way he’d be making any noise unless he wants her to hear him.

Rough hands pull the gag down and cup her aching jaw.

“Simmons-” he sounds almost scared- “look at me.”

She does and has the rare pleasure of seeing relief wash over him. She keeps her eyes on his face, resolutely avoiding the bodies behind him. If she concentrates very hard on his cheekbones, she barely even notices the growing pool of red covering the floor.

He makes quick work of the ropes holding her to the chair. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Just point,” he adds quickly.

She rests a hand gently over her chest; she suspects she has a broken rib. There are other pangs and bruises, but her ribs and jaw are the worst of it.

he winces in sympathy. “Lemme take a look, okay?” 

She obediently shifts forward in the chair, just enough that he’ll be able to lift her shirt up. Even that small movement sends a sharp stab of pain through her.

Ward has a fantastic poker face, so she doesn’t expect to see a reaction, but it’s equally telling that he doesn’t offer empty reassurances. “Can you walk?” he asks.

She nods, and is instantly proven wrong. The slight motion sends her blood rushing. She tries to blink away the sensation, only to find herself in Ward’s arms on the stairs outside the tiny room. She passed out.

Relief passes over his features again when she comes awake. “I already signaled the team,” he says. “You’ll be back on the Bus with Fitz and Skye fussing over you in a few minutes.”

Moving makes her feel sick, but it’s less nauseating when she closes her eyes. She rests her head against his shoulder, trusting him to follow through on his promises. He holds her a little tighter as he steps off the stairs. His pace quickens.

She should probably reassure him that she’s not passing out, but even without the jaw, after the day she’s had, she’s quite enjoying being held in strong, safe arms.

 

 

* * *

 

 

[I had two ideas for this one and couldn't choose.]

 

"Are you sure about this? Not that I don’t get it,” the tech quickly adds, “she’s hot and all, but … this kind of procedure on a mind like hers … it’s almost blasphemous.”

“You a religious man, Owens?” Grant asks as he circles around the chair.

“I only meant-”

“I know what you meant.” Grant bends down to cup Simmons’ chin. 

The chair’s copious restraints mean she can’t twist away or try to bite his fingers, but he can see the desire to in her eyes. She’s a fighter. 

“The full work-up,” he orders Owens. “I want her docile as a kitten and totally devoted to me by the end of the week.” He drags his knuckles down her cheek. 

She’s probably thinking this is revenge for her little stunt in the Arctic, but really it’s the opposite. It was a gutsy - if foolhardy - move, and he respects her for it, enough to spare her the worst of his plans for the team. 

“You should be grateful,” he says. “You’re getting off a lot easier than the rest of them will.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Are you sure about this? I just want to be clear because once I begin there will be no going back. So," Jemma asks, "are you?”

Coulson’s eyes remain downcast as he considers. The hatred in them is somewhat stemmed by pity, but not enough to stop him saying, “Do it.” 

Jemma nods curtly at the order and slides the machine into place at the head of the table as Coulson exits the room. The door seals shut with an audible hiss. Until she’s done here, no one will come or go. All monitoring systems attached to this room have been disabled. She’s as isolated as she can be in the Playground. Save, of course, for her patient.

Ward is furious. Hate and fear have twisted his expression into one she’s never seen on his face before. His muscles are straining, tugging at the restraints.

“I should,” Jemma says placidly, “at this point say something about hoping this is as painless as possible and wanting you to get through it comfortably, but I think we both know I’m hoping you manage to break free just enough that you end up killing yourself midway through the procedure. So feel free to struggle all you like.” Rather than risk her fingers, she snips the side of the gag with surgical scissors. “And you’ll need to be awake, I’m afraid, to tell me if you suddenly lose feeling in your limbs or go blind in one eye or what have you. “

“I’m going to kill you, you bitch,” Ward says, voice cold and hard. Despite his position strapped to her surgical table, she can’t help a twinge of fear at the promise.

She pushes it down, keeping her voice level as she says, “No. You won’t,” and powers up the TAHITI machine.

 


	96. starter sentence fics (part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More fics written in response to first sentence prompts. Enjoy.

"That's an impressive amount of condoms."

Jemma’s neck rolled his direction in a very dramatic build up to her annoyed face. “Don’t start,” she said.

Grant just kept on smiling, which was weird because this was  _not_  a smile-worthy situation. But he couldn’t stop. It was kind of like the berserker staff, but the opposite. Maybe it had something to do with knowing, every time he looked at Jemma now, exactly what she would look like in the exact same situation but without clothes. Maybe it was the sex. 

He let his eyes drop, considering the possibility that exposure to the Chitauri virus might’ve had some unforeseen side effects.

“Stop that,” she said.

“What?” he asked innocently.

“Imagining me naked. It’s not helping matters.”

He might’ve worried that he was losing his touch if Jemma could so easily read him, but worry faded fast with the way a blush was crawling up her neck. He tipped his head to one side, finding a flaw in his new mental catalog of Naked Jemma. He had no idea how low that blush would extend. Something to look into.

For the moment though, he decided to play things safe. He stepped up to the lab table beside her and leaned his forearms on the small amount of space  _not_  covered by condoms.

“From Skye?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the pile instead of on her. He couldn’t imagine her naked if he wasn’t looking. (Okay, he  _could_ , but it was a lot less fun.)

Jemma picked up a stray and tossed it up onto the pile spilling from the over-sized gift box. It had the opposite effect of the one she intended, when it resulted in a minor condom avalanche. Grant bit his lip to keep from laughing.

“May, actually,” she said dryly. “I think she’s trying to send us a message.”

Grant scoffed. “As if we need it. We’re not raising our kids on a  _plane_.”

It took no small measure of his incredible self-control to not only keep from looking at Jemma, but to also keep from laughing at the look on her face.

“We are  _not_  having children!” she said, just this side of shrill. “We are getting this silly marriage annulled at the first opportunity and then we are putting this behind us.”

“Of course,” Grant said, conveniently forgetting to tell her about SHIELD’s mandatory couples counseling for all agents seeking divorce or the six month waiting period before the agency would even move forward on divorce proceedings.

He thumbed the brand new ring on his third finger, thinking maybe  _it_  had something to do with his unquenchable smile.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There were moments in life where it was completely inappropriate to laugh; this was one of them.

“Oh,” Jemma said, her laughter dying out abruptly. “You’re serious. Really?”

“Very, Agent Simmons,” Victoria said. And it was an  _Agent_  moment as well. Fantastic. 

“You want  _me_  to go undercover?” Jemma asked, just to be clear. “I can’t lie!”

Victoria pursed her lips. “As I am well aware,” she said dryly. It had always been one of her greatest disappointments that Jemma couldn’t tell a lie to save her life. Which this mission would no doubt require her to do. “There’s an old friend of yours close to the new director of SHIELD. We want you to use that connection to get inside, help us get a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

Jemma squirmed. She felt comfortable enough with Victoria - the woman who had brought her into the fold of HYDRA upon her early graduation from the Academy and who had shielded her from, well, _SHIELD_  ever since - to turn away. Perhaps it was just that naiveté Victoria kept lamenting in her, but Jemma sincerely doubted Victoria would punish her for the slight insubordination. Besides, Jemma couldn’t really face her right then, not with the way her thoughts were buzzing about. 

She wasn’t sure where she meant to look - there were few places in the nerve center that could steady a person’s thoughts - but her eyes landed on the HYDRA symbol on the wall. Victoria was always complaining about them. Crass and overbearing, she called them. Jemma didn’t agree. She found them soothing, a reminder that  _here_  she had nothing to fear. 

There would be no such talismans in SHIELD’s current headquarters, of that there could be no doubt. There would be only the eagle, watching her every move, waiting for her to make a misstep. And she would. She  _definitely_  would.

“This will never work,” she said. “I don’t even have the training for a mission like this.”

“That’s why I’m not sending you in alone,” Victoria said, sounding some odd mix of chiding and kind. Jemma looked to her and found Victoria staring over her head. “Grant Ward. One of our best specialists. On loan from the Clairvoyant. Agent Ward, you’ll be accompanying Agent Simmons into the lion’s den. Do try to return her unharmed, otherwise I’m afraid I won’t be able to return you to Garrett in the same state.”

The threats were par for the course, so Jemma paid them little mind. She was far too caught up studying her new … partner, she supposed. He was very tall and broad and that tight, black shirt he was wearing beneath his body armor (was he aware Victoria had a strict dress code?) gave her a good view of his arms. Like all specialists, he was an exceptional physical specimen, but unlike most, he had the facial features to match. His only blemish was a scar along his right cheek that only added to his rugged demeanor.

Dark eyes traveled coolly over her from head to toes and back again, giving her the same inspection she’d given him. She suspected she passed, if the slight tilt to his lips was any indication.

“Agent Simmons,” he said warmly. “I guess I’ll be keeping you alive for the next few weeks. You wanna help me plan out our cover while I get cleaned up?”

“You’ve been assigned temporary quarters in B wing,” Victoria said, dismissal clear in her tone. “Simmons can show you where it is.”

Ward’s gaze didn’t lift away from Jemma. He didn’t even offer Victoria a customary “ma’am” before turning his back on them.

“He’s dangerous,” Victoria said softly once he was out of earshot. “The Clairvoyant is our ally, but not our friend. Remember that.” An elbow at her back spurred Jemma forward, toward the hall where Ward was waiting. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with him while he’s yours.”

Ward smiled at her as she approached. It could have easily been calculated. That wouldn’t stop Jemma from enjoying their time together though.

 

 

* * *

 

 

[Not a sentence prompt, but too short for its own chapter.]

 

Grant wakes up in the same room he got knocked out in. He knows because of the smell, like old onions and dirty socks. The angle of the sun shining straight through the window and onto his still-closed eyes says he’s been out for about five hours. From a dendrotoxin round if his headache’s any indication. It always hits in the same place with dendrotoxin, right at the base of his spine.

Nearby, Coulson and Fitz are talking in hushed voices about escape plans - guard rotations, explosions, door locks… They’ll definitely need Grant for that (or at least need him mobile), but he doesn’t move to alert them that he’s awake. 

It’s strategic. He’s learning how they’ll form a plan not only  _without_  him as an asset, but  _with_  him as a liability.

Or, maybe, it has something to do with his pillow being Simmons’ lap. She was the only other person captured with them and she smells faintly of that expensive floral scented soap she uses. He has no idea how much of those five hours his head’s spent in her lap, but it’s long enough that she’s started carding her fingers through his hair absently. Her light touch is doing wonders for his headache, and if he concentrates hard enough, he can hear her heartbeat over the planning in the corner. 

All in all, it’s not the worst wake-up he’s ever had.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"The point is, you can't just go around stealing people's metaphorical goats!"

That’s it. Simmons has gone insane. Once Grant gets her back to base, he’s gonna order a shrink for her. Torturing her will be tough if she’s too messed up to realize she’s even  _being_  tortured.

“What?” he asks, figuring if he keeps her talking, it’ll give him more time to get out of these damn cuffs she’s got holding him to a pipe in the wall. They must be a new design of Fitz’s, that’s the only explanation he has for why he can’t pick them. If he has to break his wrist again, he’s breaking hers. That’s just fair.

“Oh,” she says, blinking like she’s just come out of a stray thought, “sorry. You weren’t there for that lecture - because you’re evil.” She turns away with a low whimper. “This is terrible.”

“I can’t disagree.” Grant’s still struggling with the cuffs. There’s nothing for it, he’s just gonna have to break his wrist. He eyes Simmons, deciding he’ll go for her left. To be nice.

Before he can psych himself up to actually snap his own bone, she faces him again, her expression resolute. 

“Goats represent-” she waves a hand in the air- “they represent thoughts, preoccupation. At least according to May’s ex-husband. And apparently - again, according to May’s ex - preoccupation can very naturally lead to … other things.”

Grant backtracks, trying to remember what the hell she even said about goats in the first place so he can figure out where she might be going with this. She doesn’t give him much time though, before she’s pushing him up against the wall. The cuffs drag at his wrist.

“I still hate you,” she says, and then she’s kissing him.

Oh yeah, she’s definitely crazy. But now he’s thinking he’s gonna have fun with her in a less bloody way.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"It can fly?" Simmons is bent so close to the glass her breath fogs against it. Her eyes are fixed on the … thing (Grant will  _not_  call it a dragon, no matter how many times it breathes fire), so he shoots a hard look over the top of her head at his lab rats.

“Did we know it could fly?” he asks.

“N-no, sir,” one very brave (or stupid) scientist says. “It only began exhibiting that behavior in the last few minutes. We didn’t even know it had wings!”

Grant rolls his eyes and steps a little closer to Simmons. She’s so caught up in the view of the dog-sized lizard flying around the enclosure, that she doesn’t notice. He slides his palms over her shoulders from behind and bends close to her right ear. “You see what I’m working with here? This is why I need _you_.”

“That does not excuse kidnapping,” she says in a tone that says she’s gearing up to give him a severe talking to. (She doesn’t seem to have caught on that being his prisoner means she should be afraid of him.) 

Luckily for him (and her), the thing chooses that moment to grab onto a pole right in front of the glass. Its wings stretch wide, catching the air to slow its momentum, and the bright, butterfly-like patterns make Simmons gasp in delight.

Grant smirks and gives her shoulders a slight squeeze. She can complain all she likes; he’ll have her cloning him an army of these things inside a week.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"I suppose this is one of the rare instances where the 'dangerous measures' came before the 'desperate times'."

“Is it?” Coulson asks seriously, not at all reassured by her attempts at a light-hearted tone. “You’re in a dangerous situation, Jemma.” Oh no. The first name. He’s really getting into fatherly mode now; this is _not_  good. “And I can’t imagine a man like that …” His expression darkens, the lines on his face standing out sharply. “Did he force you at all?”

She’s thankful that they’re broaching this topic now, after dinner, so that she can keep her hands beneath the table where he won’t see them shaking. “No,” she says firmly. He didn’t. In fact, Grant went out of his way to make it clear it was  _her_  choice whether or not she dated him. It was a shock to be sure, that one of HYDRA’s elite specialists would  _ask_  rather than  _take_. 

She knew it was a risk, that her hasty training in no way prepared her for literally sleeping with the enemy, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. And, to be quite honest, he charmed her.

She’s been an agent first and foremost for  _months_. The only time she ever gets to be a real, human person is when she’s dealing with Fitz, and that’s hardly pleasant with his confession still standing between them. But Grant made her feel like simply a woman, young and desirable. She had no idea how much she missed that feeling until he came along.

Coulson angles himself more directly towards her in his chair and leans forward intently. “Do you want an extraction?”

“No!” she says, perhaps a little more sharply than she means to. But that isn’t her fault. What is he  _thinking_? Extract her? She’s just been bumped up a level! This is exactly what they’ve been waiting for and he wants to pull the plug  _now_?

He holds up his hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay. But if you ever  _do_ , know that no one will demand answers as to why if you’re uncomfortable talking about it.”

Oh. They’re still on this then. Bloody fantastic.

She folds her hands firmly in her lap. “It’s true that Gra- that  _Agent Ward_ approached me first, but that doesn’t mean he forced me into anything. I’m not-” she searches for the best way to put this- “being abused,” she settles on finally. She’s careful to meet his eyes so he knows she is sincere. “And, if I was, I promise you, I would put my well-being before the mission.”

Coulson eases back in his chair, his eyes never leaving her as a small smile curls his lips. “You’ve come a long way in such a short time. That was a truly believable lie.” He holds up a hand to stop her protests. “I believe you that he’s not hurting you, what I  _don’t_ believe is that you’d abandon this mission. You’re too noble to look out for you own good.” He shrugs. “It’s why I like you. It’s also why I almost didn’t send you.”

He sighs, and rather than relax with it, seems to gain a new tension. He is no longer, in that moment, her former team leader, but the Director of SHIELD, and he is here to debrief an agent.

She falls easily into her report on HYDRA’s ongoing projects. She’s more than grateful for the shift in subject;  _this_  part of their conversation, she’s had ample time to rehearse. She has no idea what she would say if he kept on about Grant. 

That he comes to her with blood still on his hands and she’s had to learn not to cringe away? That she’s learned so well she doesn’t even notice it anymore until she’s stealing his shirts to replace her ruined ones? That before he left for the mission he’s on now, there was a moment in his bed when she wanted to say those three little words, not as a spy saying them to a mark but as a woman to a man? That she’s afraid even now one of her friends is shooting him and she’ll never be able to explain why she can’t look at them again? That she’s more afraid he’s killing one of her friends because she  _would_  be able to look at him?

Perhaps, she thinks, she  _does_  need that extraction, though not for the reasons Coulson fears. And that’s precisely why she can’t bring herself to ask. She knows their relationship was over as soon as it began but, while she can, she’ll keep him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"That is the worst idea I've heard this week."

She pushes off from his chest and swings her legs over the side of the bed. 

“O-kay?” Grant says. “Not really the response I was expecting.”

She lets out what might be a muted yell and jumps to her feet to pace the room. “And what were you  _expecting_?”

He levers himself up onto his elbows so he can watch her. Electricity’s a pipe dream these days, but the moon’s full outside. It’s plenty to see her by. “I don’t know,” he says sharply, “‘I love you too,’ maybe?”

Jemma stops to pin him with a glare. “This is not a  _relationship_.” She snatches her underwear off the floor and shoves her legs furiously into them. (He sighs in disappointment.) “This is a mutually beneficial arrangement-”

“That sounds like a kind of relationship to me.”

She ignores him. “You protect me from the infected, I patch you up when you’re injured. You keep me alive, I keep you alive.  _That_  is the deal. Nothing more.” Next comes her bra and then the rest of her clothes. Jeans. Shirt. Boots. Hell, even the jacket. She really is done. 

“Could’ve fooled me.” He flops back onto the bed. It’s the first one they’ve seen in weeks, he’s not gonna waste it just because she’s eager for a fight.

She stomps across the floor. Her fingers brush her gun on the nightstand, but don’t pick it up. Maybe it’s the reminder of what her life is now, maybe it’s the photograph of the happy couple who used to sleep in this bed before the world went to hell, maybe she’s just finished. Whatever reason, she sinks to the mattress.

With her sitting over him, he’s got a great view of her expression as the world now overtakes the world before in her mind. It’s not that she  _forgot_  - no one can forget, not with what’s out there - but sometimes it’s easier to pretend things are still the way they used to be, even if that means yelling at your only companion.

She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t move at all except to blindly reach for him. He gives her his hand readily and she squeezes.

“I think I might - you know - too,” she says softly. 

He brings her hand to his lips to press a kiss just past her knuckles. “I know.”


	97. sentence starter fics (part 4)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even more fics written in response to first sentence prompts. Enjoy.

_After a certain point I should just stop talking. ... Now. Now would be good._

Grant keeps his face carefully impassive as he continues his morning workout, but inside he chuckles. He can’t risk letting on his little  _skill_  and since he never knows when he’s being watched or by who, that means keeping his reactions in check. Sometimes - like now, when Simmons is so clearly flustered over something - it’s difficult, but usually her thoughts are a gentle hum at the back of his mind, keeping from feeling isolated down here.

It started, like most of these things do, with some alien artifact and a blow to the head. When he woke up, trapped in a car trunk with Simmons for company, he could hear her thoughts. He can’t read her mind, only overhear the things she puts words to, and it’s  _only_  her, which was, at the time, very disappointing. 

Being able to hear Coulson’s thoughts would’ve been great, probably would’ve saved him a world of trouble. Skye would’ve saved him from that mess at Providence. May … May would’ve been terrifying, but there’s no doubt it would’ve been useful. Hell, even Fitz would’ve been better. But Simmons? She  _can’t lie_ , what good is knowing what she’s thinking when it’s written plain as day on her face?

A lot of good, it turns out, because she thinks as much as she talks. Most of it is stuff he has no hope of understanding and he learned early on to push it aside, let it all wash over him the same way her spoken words flowed past. But she’s still there, always, reminding him there’s a world outside these three walls and energy barrier. 

If it weren’t for her, he might’ve been serious in his suicide attempts. 

_You can do this. Keep eye contact, just like May said._

He tries to figure out what’s got her so flustered this time. Maybe she’s finally trying to make a move for Trip. And that’s a bad idea because the thought of  _May_  giving relationship advice has him ducking his head to hide from the cameras.

 _You are not_ lying _. You are simply telling selective truths._

Grant frowns at that. It sounds like Simmons is undercover, but that can’t be right. He knows she was getting training more suitable for a field agent a while back, but he figured that was just to keep her from dying next time they'd need a biochemist in the field. Did Coulson seriously send her on an undercover mission after the way the  _last_  one went? She publicly accused him of sleeping with multiple prostitutes and then dumped her dead mother’s ashes - fake ones, but still - all over the mark. And all of that was according to  _plan_.

 _No reason to tell this Bakshi fellow_ everything _. Just enough to confirm what he already knows and then something that can be construed as amoral to make HYDRA happy._

Grant comes full stop in his workout. HYDRA?  _Bakshi?_  Sunil freaking Bakshi? Right-hand man to that psychopath Whitehall? A man Grant thought was crazy  _before_  Raina told him about Skye’s parents. Simmons is with _him_?

She’s gonna die.

He spends the next hour moving mindlessly from activity to activity, his focus on Simmons’ thoughts, which grow increasingly frantic. She’s being taken into the field with HYDRA - probably a loyalty test - and is scared out of her wits. It definitely doesn’t help when they go up in a Quinjet. She was always okay on the Bus thanks to its size, but the smaller aircraft has her reciting lists and formulas that might as well be nonsense for all Grant understands. 

By the time the barrier turns transparent again, he’s pacing his cell. It’s on the tip of his tongue to offer any answers Coulson wants. Simmons is in danger and if she dies, he’ll be alone down here.  _Really_ alone. With how his plans for escape are progressing, he doesn’t know if he’ll make it long enough to get there without her voice in the back of his head.

It’s not Coulson though, it’s Fitz, and seeing him is just enough to remind Grant that exposing this little secret of his is a Very Bad Idea. Getting Fitz the information Simmons needs turns out to be harder than Grant hopes. A little suffocation leaves his still-healing larynx sore for hours afterward, but it’s worth it when he hears Simmons realize the team’s arrived to save the day. 

But not her. 

Simmons stays in HYDRA, stays in danger. Grant mentally cycles through his plans while she decompresses with some summer pop song he’s missed in his weeks down here. It’s only a matter of time before she gets herself killed or worse. If it’s the former, he wants to be out of here before then. If it’s the latter, the same, but he’s also gonna need to be in a position to get her out of HYDRA. He’d really rather not find out if it’s possible to be secondhand brainwashed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

This had the potential to be either very, very good or very, very bad.

“What is it, love?” Jemma asks, forcing her brain to start moving despite the warm comfort of sleep clinging to the edges of her consciousness.

Roger hugs his teddy bear a little tighter to his chest so that he can wipe his nose. “There’s a monster in the bathroom.”

Jemma suppresses a moan. She hoped his nightmares were past - it’s been months since he last had one and even longer since the attack that sparked them in the first place - but she supposes it’s only natural for these things to linger.

She throws off the blankets all at once, knowing there’s no way she’ll climb out from under them if she takes it slow. The cold air hits her and she stands just to force some warmth into her muscles. Roger holds out an ICER to her. She smiles, deciding to be proud that he remembered what to do in an emergency rather than worried over it.

“Thank you,” she says, and takes his hand once she relieves him of the weapon. He walks a little too close to her down the hall, his tiny body bleeding heat into her leg, and his feet nearly tripping hers.

The light’s on, so she wonders if he might have gone into the bathroom while still half-asleep. She pushes him slightly behind her - because even an imaginary threat is an opportunity to reinforce his lessons - and nudges the door open. Her mouth goes dry and for one brief instant her grip on the ICER slackens before she’s aiming it directly at Grant Ward.

“Oh,” Roger says, his fingers loosening their death grip on her pajama bottoms. “He looked like a monster before.”

“Sorry about that, kid,” Ward says, wiping what is plainly blood from his neck. There’s no sign of an injury. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared!” Roger says, stomping his foot.

“Love,” Jemma says, her voice carefully pitched so as to seem calm. “I want you to go to bed now, and if you’re-”

“No,” Ward says, his focus still on the mirror. “Go to your mom’s bed. She and I are old friends. We’re gonna be up late talking.”

Jemma purses her lips. “Yes,” she agrees carefully, “and if you’re good-”

“Go to bed, kid,” Ward says, turning just far enough to catch Jemma’s eye. He doesn’t seem at all concerned over the ICER - maybe he knows she’d rather not shoot him in front of her son - and he’s not going to let her finish the sentence, probably assuming it’s going to be some sort of code. Which it  _is_ , but still. She has every right to parent her child as she sees fit without the interference of a  _murderer_.

“Go,” she says, giving Roger’s dark hair a tousle. She takes her eyes off Ward to watch him walk away, and has the ICER plucked from her hand for her care.

“Cute kid,” Ward says, examining the weapon while he dirties her wall with whatever filth he’s been getting himself into tonight.

It’s not the newest model ICER, but still markedly different from the original version he tested on the Bus so long ago, he’s naturally interested in it. Not interested enough to abandon his train of thought, however. 

“I wondered why you weren’t showing up on missions anymore.” He nods after Roger. “So who’s the father? Don’t tell me it’s Fitz; he was way too gone on you to knock you up just to let you get away.”

“Do you honestly think I’d tell  _you_?” she asks sharply. “Ignoring for the moment that you’ve broken into my house and frightened my son, you are a murderer and a traitor and a- a  _monster_.”

The insults wash over Ward as easily as water. He doesn’t react at all except to twist the ICER between his hands, so casually that she almost misses that it’s suddenly pointed in her direction. Almost.

“I think you’re gonna tell me everything I want to know, Simmons.” He laughs at the way she pales. “Don’t worry. I’m not here for intel, just to clean up, lay low for a few hours. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let gossip like this just pass me by. So, who is it?”

A dozen names flit through her head, all of them lies, and all of them dangerous. If she names someone Ward has a grudge against, it puts Roger in danger. She could claim his father is a civilian, but Ward’s unlikely to believe her even if she could manage a believable lie. 

Still, the truth is so unappealing an option that she has only the late hour to blame when she gives it.

“He’s yours.”

Jemma’s most treasured memory is the first moment she held Roger in her arms, the way his angry wrinkles smoothed as he was settled against her and the redness faded to the warm, pinkish glow of a newborn. Never before or since has she seen anything that brought her more joy.

Ward’s shell-shocked expression now, however, comes very, very close.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"I...did not think it was physically possible that she could fit in that."

“I don’t  _care_  if she can fit in the damn dress,” Grant snaps as Fitz’s face grows steadily redder, “she shouldn’t be on this mission!”

The thin line of Coulson’s mouth at least means he feels similarly, but what he says is, “She’s the only person we’ve got who can pass as Ms. Darling.”

Grant resists the urge to slam his hands down on the briefing room table - mostly because it’d probably cost more than his yearly salary to replace the damn thing. “So request an agent from the Dome! It’s less than three hours away and they’ve gotta have someone-”

“With all due respect, Ward,” Simmons cuts in, her hand landing on his shoulder from behind.

He turns, but only slightly so as not to unbalance her. She’s trying to adjust the strap on one of her very high heels; it’s gotten twisted around and she’s biting her lip while she attempts to straighten it over the back of her ankle. With the angle she’s at, it’s impossible not to notice the way the dress - an original from some famous designer whose name Grant forgot the moment he heard it - lifts and displays her breasts. 

“I didn’t-” She huffs out a frustrated breath and shifts the heel of her standing foot. His hands move to hover over her hips in case she needs the support. She finally manages to get the strap smoothed down and straightens, blinking in surprise when his face is nearly level with hers thanks to the shoes. She smiles through it. “I didn’t let May and Skye stuff me in this thing so you could give this mission to someone else.”

“Good,” Coulson says, and Grant’s thankful because the reminder there was anyone else in the room - including his superior officer - gets him to take his eyes off her. “Simmons is our best option - and she’s been spending time with Ms. Darling to acclimate herself to the cover. I’m sure she’ll be a great body double.”

Okay, maybe Grant’s _not_ thankful. He opens his mouth to start arguing again.

“And,” Coulson adds, his eyes sliding over to meet Grant’s, “if she has any trouble, her body guard will be there to help her out.”

If Grant’s being generous, he might say the sound stuck in his throat is a groan, but with how he’s feeling, it’s a lot more likely to be a growl.

Beside him, Simmons beams. “Precisely.”

“We should get going,” May says from the lounge. She’s wearing a chauffer’s uniform and will be acting as Grant’s back-up on this mission. At least one thing’s going right, since, with Simmons on point, he’s certain he’ll need all the help he can get.

Simmons flashes that brilliant smile his way and he realizes that even if Coulson wasn’t determined to help Simmons grow as an agent or whatever, they’d be hard pressed to find someone better than her to imitate Crystal Darling’s famous smile.

“Let’s go,” she says, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Just don’t shoot anyone, okay?” he pleads as he falls into step a respectful distance behind her. It’s best to adopt his cover earlier rather than later so she won’t feel blindsided when they get to the event. Plus, with the way that dress hugs her curves and those heels shift her weight, he’s got a really great view of her ass.


	98. sentence starter fics (part 5)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For each of these, I was given the first sentence to write on from. (Sometimes I cheated and broke up dialogue, but hopefully I've been forgiven.)

“So,” Grant says slowly, trying to translate Simmons’ tech-speak in his head, “either this saves us or we go boom?”

“That’s basically the gist of the situation, yes,” she says, eyes still fixed firmly on the bomb. It’s alien, not like anything he’s ever seen before and he can’t diffuse it - at least not in the few seconds left before those lights stop blinking. Simmons says dunking it in this weird gelatin stuff will shut it down, but as that’s an untested theory and the lights are _still going_ even after the thing’s been submerged, it’s not looking good.

“Great,” he mutters. At least the others are still at the university, checking on leads there. Skye and Fitz will be heartbroken but they’ll live. And John will still be able to make a run at Coulson some other way.

Grant sighs heavily and runs a hand through his hair. “Anything you wanna hurry and do before you die?” he asks lightheartedly. “Study the pyramids? Walk the Great Wall?” There’s not even enough time for her to get off a quick call to Fitz, but she needs something to cut her terror. Besides, if they live, it’ll only help his cover.

She doesn’t laugh or even crack a smile. She stares at him with those wide, piercing eyes. Finally, she seems to decide something. “Oh, bugger, might as well. Nothing to lose, right?”

Grant’s aware of one of the lights falling out of the sequence. There’s only one left now, its glow fading in and out. But that’s the _last_ thing he’s aware of that isn’t Simmons throwing herself into his arms and kissing him with all the fervor of a woman about to die. 

He knows all about her hopeless crush and even enjoys encouraging it as much as he can without seeming too obvious about leading her on. He’s wondered a time or two whether he should back off, quit toying with her - especially since the jokes she laughs the most at are more in keeping with his real sense of humor than his cover’s - but he’s glad now he never had the practicality to cut her loose. 

He kisses her right back, tangling fingers in her hair and pulling her flush against him so there’s no space to breathe. Not much use for that anyway if this goes the way they both expect it to.

If they’re about to die, he figures there are a lot worse ways to go than clinging to Simmons, and as the final seconds tick out in the blinking of that damn light, he makes the most out of every one of them.

 

 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says.

No one else has said it. It’s been ten days and no one’s offered her a word of comfort in the aftermath of her husband’s death ( _murder_ , a small part of her whispers, the same part that can no longer look at Coulson without feeling ill). She’s received no end of condolences regarding Will but everyone is utterly silent on the topic of Grant. Do they think that because she’s already mourned his loss a thousand times in the wake of his numerous betrayals, that it somehow hurts less losing him now?

She thinks it might hurt more. 

Finally hearing the words - from her husband’s own mouth, no less - tears to shreds the meager sutures she’s managed to apply to her own heart. He catches her in his arms before she can fall and she hates how easy it is to let them comfort her. She loses herself in the familiarity even though she  _knows_ this isn’t Grant. 

This is the _thing_ from the planet. She can feel the press of its mind weighing on hers, just as she felt it there. But she can also feel the sweep of Grant’s hands on her back, the solidity of his chest beneath her wracking sobs, the gentle shushing of his voice in her ear.

When she’s finally cried herself out, the hands cup her shoulders and ease her back. The face is the same and she’s surprised to see her own hand lifting to touch the remains of the cut she warned him would scar at Providence. He was always proud of how few visible scars he’d earned in his years of field work and she teased that it made him look dashing, heroic. If only she’d known…

He smiles and there’s more of Will in it than Grant. Her ragged heart shudders.

“I can make it easier for you,” he says and his tone reminds her of Grant’s promises that he would somehow be able to explain everything, make everything better once they were securely in HYDRA’s care. 

She was revolted by those reassurances but this one gives her pause. She’s been walking around with a hole in her chest for nearly two years. For a time, Will was able to shore up her empty spaces - but he’s gone and without him the emptiness seems more vast than ever. She feels like she’s bleeding out and no one sees, screaming and no one hears. 

She misses Grant.

That’s the horrible truth of it. She misses him and will never be hole again without him and everyone is  _so relieved_ he’s gone that none of them think perhaps it’s killing her. His absence hollows her out more every day and, though she refuses to grant herself permission to think of it, she knows soon there won’t be anything left. What will happen then - what she will _do_ then - she doesn’t know but the thought of that day terrifies her more than HYDRA, more than the thing wearing her dead husband’s skin. 

If he can lessen her pain, why not let him? What has she got to lose?

(Her life, a different corner of her mind whispers - but there isn’t much of that left anyway, now is there?)

“Please,” she says.

The smile grows, becoming more like Grant’s as is does but never quite matching his. The hands lift away from her shoulders to brush her hair back from her face and she feels the touch reaching past her skin, into the deep recesses of her mind. She’s thrown off-balance. The world shudders around her like an earthquake and for a terrifying moment she can’t grasp a single thought. 

When everything snaps back into focus, there are familiar fingers tangled in her hair and warm lips against hers. She returns the kiss eagerly, pulling him to her. His hand squeezes her hip in a grip just short of bruising and it sends an electric shock through her. He breaks the kiss on a grin.

She knows those eyes, dark with lust and promise, knows the proprietary way his hand massages the curve of her hip while he waits to see what will come next. She trails her fingers along his jaw, feeling the pleasant scrape of his stubble. There’s an echo of the sensation on the skin of her mouth and her muscles clench.

“Missed you,” she says.

The hand at the back of her neck tugs her forcibly closer until they’re so close she can feel the warmth of his breath against her face. “Missed you too, baby.” He kisses her again, hard and fierce and wanting.

She returns it measure for measure, using his mere presence to fill up the hollow in her chest and sooth emotions that have been scraped raw. She still knows what he is and what he isn’t but so long as what he is includes a man (two men) she loves, she can no longer find it in her to care about the rest.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Can’t tie them up if they just wiggle around,” Jemma said, shooting a pleased grin at May’s prone body. She turned her smile on the rest of the team, waiting to see if any of them would follow May’s lead and attempt a daring escape.

“Simmons,” Coulson said slowly, adopting his fatherly voice. He leaned forward as far as the guard tying his hands behind his back would allow. “That injection Quinn gave you, it’s done something to you, impaired your judgment.”

Well, at least it was an emotional appeal instead of another fruitless bid for freedom. She handed the night-night gun she’d used on May off to the nearest of the Centipede soldiers Quinn had brought with him.

“Lock them in the Cage,” she said. “And someone be sure to grab Fitz from the lab.” She hated to lock him up with the rest - he could be so much more useful, if only given the chance to see reason - but there was no telling what trouble the next few hours would bring and if he was going to wake up without her there, it would be far easier to undo the others’ poisonous words against her than to fix a gaping hole in the plane. 

“Okay,” Skye muttered as she was led to the stairs, “but is anyone else _totally freaked_ about what mad scientist Simmons is gonna do?”

Neither Coulson nor Ward responded to the question. Coulson was still looking torn with worry and Ward…

“Wait,” she said. She put a hand to the arm of Ward’s guard. “I’d like a moment with Agent Ward.”

She didn’t miss the look Coulson threw over his shoulder as he was led up the stairs. It was a warning and a plea both - to watch his back and to further his own fruitless efforts to appeal to her better nature.

Jemma kept her focus on Ward’s impassive face as Skye and Coulson were forced upstairs and as May and Fitz were carried along behind. Ward’s focus remained firmly over her head. It was an avoidance tactic but she found it terribly endearing. He only ever looked over her when they were in the field and had even confided in her once, when he was helping her reach supplies on a top shelf, that he  _liked_ her height as it made it easier for him to look beyond her for trouble. At the time, she'd remained where she stood while he came in behind her to reach up and she’d felt the warmth of his body falling over her like a wave while he said the words.

She stepped closer to him now. “Coulson’s right,” she said, “my judgment _has_ been altered.”

Ward’s gaze dropped swiftly, _delightfully_ to hers. “Really?”

She could feel the remaining soldiers watching her warily, searching for signs of a double-cross. They were unimportant and she ignored them in favor of running her hands up Ward’s chest the way she’d dreamed of a thousand times while patching up his wounds. Her only disappointment was that while she was not wearing her standard exam gloves, he was wearing his shirt.

“Yes.” She leaned closer still to him and slipped her hands up around the back of his head. “I never would have been brave enough to do this before.”

She pulled him down for the kiss she’d wanted to give him for months. Ward stiffened against her for the briefest of moments and then melted the way she’d always imagined he would, all those silly walls of his crumbling as he allowed himself to simply _enjoy_. When his mouth fell open, she dipped her tongue only briefly inside before breaking the kiss. A moan caught in his throat and would have gone unnoticed had he not been pressed up against her still. She smiled, pleased to have elicited such a reaction.

“I think it’s a rather positive change, don’t you?”

She lowered herself to her heels and Ward rolled his shoulders back, no doubt uncomfortable with the pull of his restraints. She was sorry for the necessity of them but he was far too unflinchingly loyal to change sides on the promise of entering her bed. Pity.

“Put him in with the others,” she said, stepping away from him - more to stop herself from changing her mind than to move out of the way.

As he was led up the stairs and came around the first curve, he smiled down at her, a dangerous, promising thing she’d never seen before - not even when he was interrogating prisoners or facing down adversaries. She had no idea what it meant but, like most of his looks sent her way, it sent a thrill of hopeful anticipation through her and she held his gaze as long as possible.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You have to want it more than you’re afraid of it.”

Grant’s hand froze, poised over the body, and he slowly turned his head to fix Simmons with a glare that had been known to send trained killers running for the hills. She only went on grinning.

“I am not _afraid_ of _anything_ ,” he growled more than said.

She raised a disbelieving brow. 

Grant’s jaw tightened and he turned back to the task at hand. Slow and steady. Focused. No thoughts of Christian or Thomas or the well. No Garrett or Coulson. Just him and the job. He’d dismantled bombs and this wasn’t even half as-

_Bzzt!_

“Son of a _bitch_!” he yelled and threw the tweezers across the lab. He paced away from the Operation board, willing himself to calm down. 

When he had himself well enough under control he turned to face Simmons. One of her hands was clasped firmly over her mouth but her eyes were definitely smiling. She had the decency to compose herself before lowering her hand to her knees. “You’re doing better,” she said brightly. She held out another pair of tweezers - she’d come prepared with several back-ups and he’d gotten over his annoyance about it hours ago. “Would you like to try again?”

He snatched them out of her hand and chose to ignore the faint giggle she let out as he bent over the board. 

“I am _not_ afraid,” he muttered.

She rested her forearms on the table so she could look him in the eye. He expected agreement or an apology, the sort of thing reluctant-medic Simmons was always saying to placate her patients - especially the one she had a blossoming crush on. He wasn’t expecting her to deftly reach past his tweezers with a pair of her own to snatch up the funny bone. 

“Prove it,” she challenged.

Oh, it was on.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“In my professional opinion, your plan is, in a word, _idiotic_.” Grant’s smile settled on Jemma and stayed there.

“Well then what do _you_ suggest?” she asked, ignoring his taunt - she’d seen it for what it was though, which was all that mattered.

He held up his hands, all innocence. “I know how this is gonna sound coming from me but - how about the _truth_?”

Her shocked indignation was almost as enjoyable as the sex had been.

 


	99. starter sentence fics (part 6)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sixth verse, same as the first.

“I was only gone for five minutes…” Grant reconsiders as he remembers the struggle to get Koenig’s corpse into the vent. “Ten  _tops_. How did you already…?”

“I told you,” Jemma says simply, “I was making tea.”

Now that he looks again, there are shattered teacups littering the floor amid the others’ prone bodies. 

She slides off the arm of the couch and approaches him. Her nails trail over his ear the way they usually do on the way to his neck to pull him down for a kiss, but instead she brings her hand back in front of his face to show him the blood on her thumb. “Always with the violence. There are more civilized ways to do these things, you know.” She pats his chest and slips past him out the door.

He stares down at Skye’s body next to Coulson’s. “I suppose you expect me to carry Skye to the plane?”

Her footsteps don’t even pause. “ _I’m_ not the one who cracked your ribs!” He _knew_ she was more angry about that than she let on in the lab earlier. 

Great. Just what he needs to cap off this shitstorm of a week, a shouting match between his SO and his girlfriend about his health.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“And now that _that’s_ settled, I’m going to finish my shower,” Simmons says sternly. “Assuming we’re done mucking about with the water supply?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Fitz mutters, already bent over the sink again. “I’ll warn you next time.”

Simmons scoffs and whirls on the spot to go stalking back to the bathroom. It’s the sudden movement that does it. Grant’s been doing his best not to look at her wet legs or her chest or the area _above_ her chest that the towel doesn’t cover, but when she moves he _has_ to look. It’s instinct. Just a quick glance up to reassure his highly trained specialist senses that no, she hasn’t transformed into a threat in the last two seconds. 

He takes in what he sees in the span of a heartbeat, all of it filing away in his brain for future reference should he ever need it - which he shouldn’t. Ever. So that should be the end of it.

Except for the whistle.

It slips out of him without his permission and the next thing he knows he’s the center of attention.

His eyes slip shut. “Did I just-?”

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” Skye practically crows. “Did you just check out Simmons’ _ass_?”

Fitz rolls his eyes dramatically and hunches even lower over the sink. Meanwhile Simmons is frozen in the hall, facing them and turning a bright red.

“ _No_ ,” Grant says - and that’s the truth (although now that he reexamines the memory it was a cute ass). He turns so he’s directing his words _at_ Simmons but his eyes remain on a spot three feet to her right. “Sometimes,” he says slowly, “I get a little too deep undercover and the character I had to play today is one I’ve played before. For a long time. So he’s harder to put away than some of the others and he…”

“Checked out Simmons’ ass,” Skye provides. She is _loving_  this. Fitz is muttering about how creepy that all sounds and doesn’t realize just how clearly the bowl of the sink echoes his words out to the rest of them - or he _does_  and just enjoys being an ass at Grant’s expense; it’s a toss up, really. Simmons, at least, looks understanding.

“Appreciates the female form,” Grant finishes delicately. And then, because he’s gotta get the focus off him and his very pathetic cover slip, he adds, “Especially when that form is sporting body art.”

Fitz comes up out of the sink so fast he smacks his head on one of the pots hanging over it and the sound nearly drowns out Skye’s “ _What!_ ”

“Very tasteful though,” Grant says like he has no idea what he’s just done. “Really. It’s very nice.”

“Thank you,” Simmons says tightly and, after adjusting her towel to be sure that this time it won’t fly open and reveal things she’d rather keep hidden, flees to the bathroom.

With her gone, Skye and Fitz turn their badgering in Grant’s direction. He grabs an apple from the bowl to hide his smirk and passes the next hour listening to increasingly ridiculous guesses about design and placement. Not that he gives any indication either way, but it takes them an embarrassing amount of time to get to tramp stamp and it never once overlaps with their suggestions of a SHIELD eagle.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I know you don’t remember but …” Skye - or Daisy or Quake or _whatever_ name she’s decided to call herself now - winces. “You totally married Ward.”

“No,” Jemma says.

“You did.”

“ _No_.” Jemma refuses to believe it. She’s willing to accept a lot of things she’s learned in the last few hours - that she was stranded on an alien planet for half a year, that Skye has _superpowers_ , that one of the Avengers has died - but she will not believe that she _married Grant Ward_. 

Beneath her crossed arms, she wiggles her left ring finger. The weight of the band is familiar enough not to be noticed even though she’s never been able to stand rings. And the kiss…

She woke up on the floor of a lab - a _HYDRA_ lab - in the midst of a firefight. She was still trying to make sense of it all when Ward appeared, kneeling beside her and cupping her face for a deep, though quick kiss. She felt it down to her _toes_ and, when he pulled away to shoot an oncoming soldier, leaned after him, wishing for more. Not quite the sort of reaction she would have expected of herself.

“It happened,” Skye confirms. “I lost fifty bucks when you didn’t shoot him at the altar.” She sinks deeper into her chair, pouting.

Jemma glances to the windows. Ward is out there; May, and two agents Jemma doesn’t know between him and the door. He looks like he did under the influence of the berserker staff, fighting to hold back his darker tendencies and unable to hide his struggling. His eyes meet hers over May’s shoulder and something that isn’t _just_ fear shoots through her. 

He turns and walks away. He doesn’t look back and it leaves her feeling more empty than three years of missing memories do.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Why are you dressed like it’s 1912?” the nurse applying a suture to Grant’s shoulder mutters - and then immediately freezes.

“What was that?” General Tryon asked mildly. He might be more interested in Grant than his own nurse, but no one could ignore how _weird_ that question was.

Grant’s gotta admit, it’s not completely weird. He _did_ just drop in after spending two days chasing a perp through 1912. ( _Not_ on _the Titanic_ ; Grant’s only been on the job two days but it’s been made abundantly clear that if he ever sets foot on that ship, steps will be taken to ensure he was never born, paradox be damned.) It’s only weird because the nurse working on him is in the British army circa 1778. 

“Just a saying from my hometown,” she says quickly. “To describe anyone dressed … oddly.”

Yeah, that’s a load of crap; Grant doesn’t need three years of spy training to see that.

He glances at the stitches. He knows his history - has to for SHIELD’s temporal regulation department (and they _have_ one of those, God help them all) to pull him out of the specialist rotation - but medical history is a bit obscure for him, so he can’t say for certain her stitches are anachronistic, but he knows they look a helluva lot like the ones he’s gotten every time a SHIELD doc patched him up.

She’s worrying her lower lip, fiddling with her tools like if she ignores everyone else in the room they’ll ignore her. Grant doesn’t ignore them. There are two men on either side of him, a third behind the general. Not much of a problem. And he does kind of want to get onto the American side of things, them being the winners and all.

“SHIELD?” he asks.

The nurse’s eyes fly to his. They’re kind of nice - aside from being shocked and horrified. And, if he’s reading her right, a little hopeful. He wonders how long she’s been stuck here.

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “You wanna get out of here?”

She gasps - and it can’t be described as anything other than cute - before nodding. “Very much, yes.”

He grabs the scissors she’s brought and snips the thread himself. “Don’t move, okay?” He leaves the scissors in one of the men and lets the rest live, along with the general because he knows he recognizes the name. The nurse-slash-agent doesn’t help but she doesn’t get in the way either, stays perfectly still like he told her through the violence and keeps up when he drags her out of the tent. She even shoots one of the patrolmen before he can sound the alarm.

Grant’s first time travel mission has gone to hell in so many ways - 1912 to 1778 wasn’t exactly part of the plan - but things are looking up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There comes a point in every conversation where a gracious exit needs to be made. The moment at which a hand finds its way past the fabric of Jemma’s top (not that there’s much to it in the first place; _how_ did she end up on a job that requires she wear a _bikini_?) is likely several minutes past that point. Wet lips cover hers in a sloppy kiss and it takes all her self-control to limit her reaction to leaning back rather than slapping the offending party away. This has the unfortunate effect of allowing him to maneuver her sideways so that instead of her back landing on the cold wall of the boat, it lands on the cushioned seats.

Bugger.

She grabs his shoulders in an effort to gently (she still needs his cooperation to get that intel) push him off of her, but he’s insistent, the prat. He only shifts more fully on top of her. The hand not on her breast (and really, does he have _any_ idea how to manage one? Honestly) is in her hair and his knee is-

No. Nope. Jemma is done.

She’ll use the dendrotoxin powder in her compact to knock him out and then let Hunter interrogate him the way he wanted to from the beginning. 

She opens one eye to get a better view of the rest of their party and just catches sight of Candi (her _actual name_ ) making her way along the narrow path to the aft of the boat. It seems everyone else has gone as well and, as the only other person here is rather distracted, Jemma releases his shoulder to grab for her purse on the ground. Her fingertips only just brush the straps when one of the suited guards that are ever present around her mark stumbles backward onto the deck, only to be immediately thrown overboard.

 _Finally_ , Jemma is allowed some breathing room. The mark likely noticed the scream more than her horrified gasp, but she’ll take what she can get. She has half a thought that the guard’s attacker might be Hunter come to pull her out after that little display before she is proven utterly wrong.

Grant Ward comes smirking around the side of the cabin. “Well, this is a surprise,” he says and his eyes drop to her chest, which is unfortunately exposed thanks to von Strucker’s handsy tendencies. 

“What are _you_ doing here?” she demands while she attempts to straighten her bikini top out.

“Kidnapping the von Strucker heir. What are _you_ doing here - other than letting him get an idea of what SHIELD’s benefits package has to offer?”

Oh, if she only had a splinter bomb…

“You’re _SHIELD_?” Werner demands, horrified.

Jemma gives him a hard look. “He said he’s here to kidnap you and _that’s_ what you hear?”

A guard rounds the opposite side of the cabin from Ward and in the ensuring fight Werner makes a break for it. The attempt only lands him on his arse on the ground and with what looks to be a cracked rib given the way he’s holding his chest. The guard is shot and left bleeding next to the low table. Jemma picks her feet up onto the bench and reaches again for her purse on pretense of saving it. She has no weapons save the dendrotoxin, but there is an emergency tracking device that she thinks now might be the time to activate.

“Ah ah ah,” Ward says. 

Faster than should be possible, he moves neatly over the body and steadily growing pool of blood to slide right in beside her. His arm wraps around her, pulling her back flush against him. It’s disgusting, but she feels more excitement due to the brush of his calluses at the lower edge of her top than all of Werner’s pawing did for her. The sensation is short-lived however, as Ward wastes no time in covering her mouth not with his own, but with a cloth. 

“A HYDRA legacy and a SHIELD mole,” he says, his voice sounding terribly distant in spite of the fact that her head is already lolling against his shoulder. The arm around her loosens and his fingers dance over her bare skin. “It’s my lucky day.”


	100. starter sentence fics (part 7)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like all the rest, the first lines of these were given as prompts - all except the last, which was a quote prompt that ran too short to warrant its own chapter.

“You cannot hold me to what I said when I was having an orgasm,” Jemma says primly. Her arms are crossed, chin lifted, face turned away - all clear warnings to _back the hell off_.

Grant steps closer.

“You need this,” he says, voice pitched low. It’s an underhanded tactic and has exactly the intended effect: Jemma’s breathing speeds up a hair and, when he catches hold of her arm (she’s wearing a t-shirt today and he can feel her skin through the thin fabric of her lab coat), she swallows audibly.

She turns her head to face him with a blazing smile. “Not so long as I have you around.”

It’s sweet and just the sort of thing he’s tried hard to make sure she knows - that no matter the things he might do to the enemy, she’s safe with him - but it’s not enough.

“You won’t always,” he says softly and has the dubious pleasure of watching her expression fall. He’s won but it’s at the cost of Jemma’s good mood. He runs his hand down her arm. “I can’t always be there to protect you, and you-” He looks down at their hands. “ _I_ need to know you’re safe, okay?”

She curls her fingers around his and brings his hand up to kiss his knuckles. “Okay.”

He smiles and bends to plant a quick kiss on her lips. “Sweats,” he orders - she can’t exactly train in her jeans, “ones you can move in, and those boots you love.”

“They have a heel,” she reminds him as he leaves the lab to ready the mats for her self-defense training. 

He turns in the doorway to walk backwards more slowly. “Exactly. You’re always wearing something with a little lift, I don’t want you trying to figure out how to compensate when you’re in a crunch.”

She strips off her lab coat, shaking her head fondly. “Anything else I’ll need?”

“A towel, maybe grab a couple waters from the kitchen?”

“Do you plan on working up a sweat, Agent Ward?” she asks, cocking her hip.

“Nuh-uh,” he says, turning his back on her entirely. “None of that. You’re not seducing your way out of this.” He hopes. Honestly, once they get to the actual training part, when he’ll be correcting her stance and grabbing her for test matches and showing her proper form … damn, that’s gonna be rough.

And Jemma seems determined to make it as rough as possible since she comes back down ten minutes later in yoga pants and a tank top. Now it’s Grant’s turn to gulp.

 

 

\-----

 

 

“The line between love and stalking is not as fine as you seem to think it is. Creeper.” The last insult was a little much - it was also a little _late_. He’d thought Skye was off her game today; she’d shown none of the awe-inspiring skill she’d shown in the Arctic - in fact, she’d seemed wary of using any of her new powers at all - and the one time she’d entered the fray, it had been because she was dragged in and she only made it out alive because he dragged her out again and into this hallway.

“Are you okay?” he asked, stepping closer.

She scampered back, eyes wide and frightened. She hadn’t looked at him like that since … _ever_. The only time he’d ever seen that expression on Skye’s face was when it was Kara wearing it. Skye had been disgusted by him, horrified at the reality of who he was, but never openly scared of him.

“Stay- stay away from me,” she said - and that wasn’t like her either, the stutter. The tremor was though. The whole building shook around them and she screwed her eyes shut, holding her body tense. “ _Breathe_ ,” she said to herself, “just breathe.”

He couldn’t say why he’d saved her - he was still more than a little bitter over the whole shooting him thing - but he’d done it and, from the looks of it, she was in need of saving again. And so was he, standing on the third floor as they were.

He didn’t carry an ICER these days and she’d shaken hers apart almost the minute she aimed it at him, knocking her out would probably go badly for him too, so he went with option number three and kissed her.

The stilted attempts at insult, the lack of control, the sudden evaporation of all her fighting skill: it all made sense now. She wasn’t Skye. It was Skye’s body and Skye’s mouth and Skye’s tongue sliding against his, but it wasn’t Skye controlling any of it.

Not that it was a bad kiss for all that - it was damn good, in fact - but it wasn’t Skye’s style. So, while the tremors eased off and whoever-this-was clung to him, he gently moved them into the stairwell and cuffed her to the railing.

She froze when the cuff closed around her wrist. 

“Fun as that was,” he said, trailing his knuckles down her flushed cheek, “now we’re gonna talk - mostly about just who the hell you really are.”

“Bloody hell,” she sighed, giving him a pretty good indication of who he was dealing with.

 

 

\-----

 

 

 _Poison is an art. And the essence of art is surprise._ That old adage - from a field agent attempting to entice some of SciTech’s best and brightest to brave the field - flits through Jemma’s mind as she examines the rose. It’s one of two dozen that were waiting outside her door this morning and she is _not_ taking any chances. Another of the roses is sealed in a cage with one of her rats and Jemma’s wearing gloves and a mask as she dissects this one.

“Subtle.”

She drops the scalpel and whirls on the spot. Nick Kilgo is standing in the middle of her flat, frowning at the bouquet.

She hastily removes her mask with hands shake due solely to the shock of finding him here, not at all due to it being _him_. And the annoyance! Yes, there’s definitely some of that too. Who does he think he is breaking into her flat?

But he is her newest business partner, willing to act as middleman between her and the powerful, dangerous sorts of people who wish to purchase her bioweapons. That sort of thing tends to get rather messy and, as she is, herself, a rather valuable resource (as evidenced by the dozen SHIELD agents she’s had to kill personally since leaving the agency), it’s really safer if she keeps her distance from those meetings.

That, of course, is why she says a wry, “Quite,” rather than demand what the bloody hell he thinks he’s doing here.

His sharp grin slides her way and something warm twists in her belly. “You’re not a fan of gifts that’ll be dead in two days?”

She allows her head to cant slowly from side to side as she considers. “Well, that’s not _entirely_ accurate - there are all manner of gifts I would love that have a swiftly approaching expiration date - but flowers are quite a bit less enjoyable than any of those.”

He plucks the card from the table beside the arrangement and, if his expression is anything to go by, is as nauseated by it as she was. “God, does he cry during sex too?” He meets her eyes, not the least sorry for allowing that errant thought to slip out. “This is what you’re into, Doc?”

“No.” Test subject A is still breathing and she’s eaten half her rose, so Jemma is left to assume the bouquet was truly a _please take me back_ gift from Lorenzo and not some new, inventive attempt at assassination. Pity, a little retaliation would have helped pass this dreadful day. She dumps the offending foliage in the trash.

“Someone’s in the dog house,” Kilgo mutters as she takes a boot to the flowers for good measure.

“Someone’s incapable of taking the hint,” she corrects. “I broke up with him last week and he isn’t handling it well.”

She’s never cared much for Valentine’s - didn’t even realize the date was approaching until Lorenzo made a fuss over it that night - but something about the circumstances strikes her as particularly tragic. She isn’t heartbroken in the least but to be suddenly single right before this particular day … She feels like she’s being judged.

Not by Kilgo though, not even when he makes a small, contemplative noise.

“What?” she demands.

“Nothing.” The card, she notes, has disappeared despite having been in his hand only a moment ago. Perhaps he intends on laughing over it with his girlfriend later; at least someone should get some enjoyment from it.

“What are you here about?” she asks, gathering up the rose remains littering her lab bench. 

“Wanted to check in, see we’re on track for that shipment Tuesday. Granado is not a patient man; he won’t accept set-backs.”

“We’re fine,” she says absently. “Did that really necessitate you breaking into my flat?”

He shrugs, unapologetic. “Didn’t want to draw attention standing in the hall.”

She should be angry, not charmed. She shakes her head to force her gaze away from those dark eyes and wicked cheekbones.

“Since you found the way in so well, you can find the way out. Go get cleaned up for your girlfriend. I’m sure you have plans.”

“I do,” he says in an oddly ominous tone, “but I don’t have a girlfriend.”

He’s gone before she can finish processing his tone, but he returns hours later. He doesn’t make himself known, but the fresh human heart she finds sitting in her fridge beside a note saying, “Happy Valentine’s, Doc,” can only be from him.

Perhaps she doesn’t _completely_  hate this day.

 

 

\-----

 

 

“Do I have to?”

Those four little words are still echoing in Jemma’s head hours later. They follow her through her day’s work, interrupt her every attempt at helping Fitz, haunt her when she tries to sleep - all along with the mental image of the looks on the others’ faces when they heard. 

Coulson looked like she’d broken his heart. Trip like she’d surprised him but also as though he was sympathetic to her feelings. And May … Jemma has no idea what May’s expression meant but she’s _still_ sore from the training session that followed.

And then there’s Jemma’s own face. She couldn’t see it of course, but she knows very well it was horror-stricken.

“Thank you,” Ward says, breaking the silence between them. 

Her vision snaps back into focus, allowing her a clear view of the bandages covering his right forearm. She rubs her palms up and down her own arms; she came down still in the t-shirt she wore to bed and has been sitting immobile in front of his cell so long her skin’s gone cold. 

“I mean it,” he goes on. “I don’t deserve it, not after what I did to you-” He cuts off with a laugh and a private little smile. “That probably doesn’t even compute with someone like you. You’d never hesitate to help someone, no matter how they’d hurt you - hell, you made sure Quinn was gonna live after-”

Jemma’s up and out of the chair, heading for the stairs. She can feel Ward’s eyes following her. She sees enough of his expression on her way to know he’s trying to appear some horrid mixture of hurt and concerned.

She should stay.

This is the most he’s spoken in over three weeks; if she cared at all for their mission, she would stay and attempt to parlay his sudden talkativeness into real intel. But she _can’t_. 

She pushes the heavy door shut with all her might and then falls against it. She can’t stay down there, in that room where less than twenty-four hours ago she _joked_ about allowing a man to die simply because she cared more about her own feelings than the value of his life.

She’s not sure anymore, when she looks at him, what separates them beyond the line on the floor.

 

 

\-----

 

 

 

“Honestly, I was expecting him to be better than _that_ ,” Bobbi says as they watch the security footage again in slow motion and Jemma is in wholehearted agreement. After months spent in terror of the creature, she expected it to at least be capable of throwing a simple punch in a melee.

“Make them stop,” comes the whine from the arm of the couch.

“No,” Jemma says and, for the benefit of the others, adds, “he was much more terrifying _before_ he got Ward’s body.”

“Traitor.”

As no one but her can hear the accusation, she barrels on. “If only HYDRA’s ranks hadn’t been so depleted in recent years he could have a truly frightening host body. A Bakshi or a Werner von Strucker, perhaps.”

Ward - or his ghost or whatever it is that’s been haunting her ever since Will failed to return from the planet - slides off the arm of the couch and bends over her. She’s become quite adept at pretending she can’t see him (holding her facial expressions, keeping her eyes focused precisely where they were even if there’s a chest between her and the screen) and makes no sign of it now despite the truly chilling expression on his face.

“I am going to make you pay for that,” he says while the others erupt into laughter. Daisy has begun naming even more outlandish options, which is a vengeance in itself.

Jemma calmly leans forward to lift her cup from the coffee table and, behind her sip of tea, mutters a quiet, “I’d like to see you try.”

 

 

\-----

 

 

There was yelling this morning. Jemma’s heart still shakes thinking about the way his voice filled the kitchen and his barely contained fury reminded her of the berserker staff. 

But that was this morning.

“I’m thinking of making bologna sandwiches for lunch,” she says, entering the living room with careful ease. She takes the long way around, getting a good look at the way he’s hunched over the coffee table as she goes. “Maybe with those crisps we bought last week?”

That gets her a little bit of a smile - whether because he likes the crisps or because he’s laughing at her unfailing Britishness, she can’t say.

She drops to her knees beside the coffee table. “Would you like to help me?”

The smile disappears. She reaches out to brush some of his hair aside, hoping to find it hidden somewhere.

“Your smile isn’t as bright as it used to be,” she says sadly and he finally meets her eyes with those big, puppy dog ones she fell in love with on first sight. “I don’t know what will bring back its old luster if crisps can’t.” She sighs heavily and looks to the door leading to the kitchen in search of inspiration.

“I might be able to help,” Grant says, meeting her forlorn gaze with a cocky smile.

Tommy’s face lights up and he shoots across the living room like a rocket to hit his father’s legs with enough force Grant actually stumbles back into the kitchen. 

Jemma laughs and takes a moment to find her feet to follow. Her heart is still shaking, but she won’t think about the next mission’s dangers or about how Tommy will take the inevitable departure; she won’t let that spoil the reunion or the time they have together. For the moment their family is whole and healthy and that is all that matters.

 


End file.
